[SCROLL DOWN TO READ THE ARTICLE!]

Become a StarCityGames.com Premium Member and receive exclusive access to top-level strategies, new decklists and entertaining reports from many of the best players and writers that the game has to offer! This includes "The Innovator" & Worlds finalist Patrick Chapin, 2010 Player of the Year Brad Nelson, Classic Theorist Mike Flores, Hall of Famer Brian Kibler, GP and SCG Invitational Champion Gerry Thompson, StarCityGames.com Director of Sales Ben Bleiweiss ...and many, many more!

PLUS! StarCityGames.com Premium members now have an EXCLUSIVE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER sent just to them with the latest tech, exclusive content and exclusive deals along with unprecedented access into America's largest Magic: the Gathering sales database, and can view lists of StarCityGames.com's top-selling items - broken down by category, format legality, and rarity - in real time! When it comes to trading, increased knowledge equals increased profits - and increased knowledge is just one click away for our Premium members!

A StarCityGames.com Premium Membership gives you exclusive access to the best Magic: the Gathering content available and is an amazing bargain for just pennies a day! When you're ready to start getting more out of this game, click here to join StarCityGames.com Premium today!

If you are a valid StarCityGames.com Premium member and still cannot view the article, please consult this FAQ.

Hello!

Today, I’m going to analyze the Top 8 decks from the StarCityGames.com $5000 Standard Open in Dallas.

Before I begin, you must have realized by now that I’m a pretty, well… critical person. I don’t like most things, Magic-wise. If I say I think something is bad, that’s not a personal attack on the player or anything – I’m just being objective. Whenever someone writes one of these articles, in which they say they don’t like something, there is the automatic response of “how dare you say that about my friend’s deck! He put months of playtesting into this, and you didn’t play a single game with it, how arrogant of you to think you know better than him!” That’s true, I have not playtested all these decks, and I might be wrong, but if you want to say I’m wrong, please have a better argument than “I playtested and you didn’t.”

That said, let us begin…

Merfolk A Standard deck, by Scott Barrentine 1st place at a StarCityGames.com Standard Open tournament in Dallas, Texas, United States on 2009-08-30 As reported at http://www.starcitygames.com Print this deck!
Maindeck: Creatures 2 Merfolk Sovereign 4 Merrow Reejerey 2 Reveillark 4 Silvergill Adept 4 Stonybrook Banneret 4 Wake Thrasher Instants 4 Cryptic Command 2 Harm's Way 4 Path to Exile Legendary Creatures 4 Sygg, River Guide	Tribal Instants 2 Sage's Dousing Basic Lands 7 Island 1 Plains Lands 3 Glacial Fortress 4 Mutavault 4 Mystic Gate 4 Wanderwine Hub 1 Windbrisk Heights	Sideboard: 3 Burrenton Forge-Tender 2 Glen Elendra Archmage 4 Meddling Mage 3 Sower of Temptation 3 Sleep
Download this deck in Apprentice format!		Download this deck in Magic Online Text format!

Well, before I say anything else, I have to say I don’t like Merfolk. If you want to play a pseudo-aggro Blue deck with Counterspells, why are you not playing Faeries? What are Merfolk’s advantages? Sure, it has Path versus Great Sable Stag, and Harm’s Way versus Volcanic Fallout, but I don’t think that is enough to make it better than Faeries. Faeries is just more synergic and intrinsically powerful. For example, nothing in Merfolk comes close to affecting the game the way a Mistbind Clique does, and it’s much easier to play against Merfolk too – everything is there for you to see.

I can see that Merfolk might be more appealing if your metagame is a lot of Mono Red and specific Five-Color Control builds, but I like the Fae’s match much better against anything else, and right now, for example, there is much more Merfolk than Mono Red. Your match against Faeries itself is bad - it was already not good when you had Lord of Atlantis, and now that you don’t, why should you win? Do people just assume Merfolk beats Faeries? I know I’m biased towards Faeries and all, but I have never had a problem beating Merfolk, and I fail to see why I should have.

As far as Merfolk builds go, I like this – it’s pretty average. I like the Bannerets – I think if you play without them you might as well cut the Merfolk altogether and play the UW list from UK Nationals. The sideboard should probably have two or more Baneslayers in it, for decks like Jund. I’ve never really been a fan of Sleep, but I suppose it’s not bad in the mirror and against WW. I don’t think I would board it in against anything else, though, so as it is I’d rather have more Sowers and Baneslayers in those slots. We had a PTQ here that was won by Merfolk with Baneslayer maindeck, and I think that’s potentially good – they might be better than Reveillark overall – but then I’m not sure the Merfolk fit. If you play Baneslayers, then Vendilion Clique, Meddling Mage, and Glen-Elendra Archmage seem better than random Merfolk that do nothing but attack.

So, basically, if you want an aggro control deck, play Faeries. If you want a Baneslayer deck, play UW. If you don’t own those cards, then play Merfolk.

G/W Overrun A Standard deck, by Andrew Krug 2nd place at a StarCityGames.com Standard Open tournament in Dallas, Texas, United States on 2009-08-30 As reported at http://www.starcitygames.com Print this deck!
Maindeck: Creatures 4 Cloudgoat Ranger 4 Kitchen Finks 3 Knotvine Paladin 4 Noble Hierarch 3 Steward of Valeron 4 Wilt-Leaf Liege Instants 4 Path to Exile Planeswalkers 3 Ajani Goldmane	Sorceries 3 Overrun 4 Spectral Procession Basic Lands 7 Forest 5 Plains Lands 4 Sunpetal Grove 4 Windbrisk Heights 4 Wooded Bastion	Sideboard: 3 Pithing Needle 4 Burrenton Forge-Tender 4 Great Sable Stag 2 Qasali Pridemage 2 Primal Command
Download this deck in Apprentice format!		Download this deck in Magic Online Text format!

Welcome to March!

Seriously, what is this deck doing here? GW hasn’t won a match in the last 4 months, and now it gets second all of a sudden? I’ve never liked the deck, and I still don’t. It’s basically a bunch of creatures and pump spells… slap in some Fireballs and you have yourself the perfect kiddie deck.

The biggest problem I have with this deck is that you have nothing to stop your opponent from doing what they are doing, and you usually cannot kill them fast enough to prevent it from happening either – though at least this build has 3 Overruns, which I like - if you are going to do that, at least try to kill them quickly. How do you beat, say, Elves? Or Time Sieve game 1? You likely just scoop to those decks, and I don’t like decks that just scoop. It also has 4 Hierarchs and only 7 Forests, which bothers me.

Another problem I have with this deck is its sideboard. It’s just… bad. Cards like Qasali Pridemage have no reason to be there other than looking like a sideboard card. Both him and Pithing Needle have very narrow applications outside of beating Time Sieve, though I suppose you could board Needle against Planeswalkers and Qasali against Faeries too. Primal Command and Burrenton Forge-Tender are good cards, but you shouldn’t need this much against Red. I’d be perfectly comfortable with cutting those six anti-Red slots down to two.

On the same “doesn’t lose to Red already” topic, I would prefer it if the Kitchen Finks became something else. As it is, I don’t think they add much to the deck other than being a GW creature for Wilt-Leaf Liege. Before, Persist was more relevant, because it let you keep a creature for all your pump effects when faced with Mass Removal, but the Mass Removal of today (which is not generally played anyway) will also get rid of Kitchen Finks. If you replace them with Great Sable Stags, those also don’t die to Fallout, and they give you a much better game against Faeries and Merfolk.

If you do that, though, you’re left with, well, zero sideboard cards that I like. My sideboard would probably be something like 2-3 Needle, just because there is nothing else to board and you can’t win against Time Sieve if you don’t have this; 2-3 Cloudthresher, which is good against the UW deck if they have Vendilions and Sowers too; 3-4 Baneslayer Angel, which is probably better than Primal Command against Red anyway; some Burrenton Forge-Tenders maybe, depending on room; 2-3 Pollen Lullaby against Merfolk, to combat Sleep, as well as Kithkin and such; and the rest against Five-Color Control, though there isn’t much. I guess maybe you could play Oversoul of Dusks? Though then you’d have to be careful with all the five-drops.

As much as I dislike this deck, I think it should have beaten Merfolk in the finals – if it didn’t, I assume it was because of Sleep (how ironic… I would have lost).

5-Color Bloodbraid A Standard deck, by George Blankenship 3rd place at a StarCityGames.com Standard Open tournament in Dallas, Texas, United States on 2009-08-30 As reported at http://www.starcitygames.com Print this deck!
Maindeck: Creatures 4 Baneslayer Angel 4 Bloodbraid Elf 3 Glen Elendra Archmage 4 Rhox War Monk Instants 3 Bituminous Blast 4 Cryptic Command 4 Esper Charm 2 Volcanic Fallout Planeswalkers 2 Ajani Vengeant	Sorceries 3 Cruel Ultimatum Basic Lands 3 Island Lands 2 Cascade Bluffs 1 Exotic Orchard 2 Flooded Grove 2 Mystic Gate 4 Reflecting Pool 2 Rupture Spire 2 Sunken Ruins 1 Vivid Crag 4 Vivid Creek 4 Vivid Meadow	Sideboard: 3 Great Sable Stag 2 Runed Halo 2 Volcanic Fallout 4 Blightning 2 Identity Crisis 2 Maelstrom Pulse
Download this deck in Apprentice format!		Download this deck in Magic Online Text format!

I like this deck!

The mana is obviously a nightmare, but you can see that the deck is the product of conscious decisions, and not just 60 cards thrown together. It plays 2 Rupture Spires because it doesn’t have two-drops, though I have to admit I still don’t like that and would rather have two more Vivids at the cost of running out of counters eventually – I had Rupture Spires for block for a moment, and all the time I drew it outside of turn 2 I wanted to cut my wrists. I think the deck loses enough tempo by not having anything turns one and two that you cannot afford to lose another turn later on for Rupture Spire.

This deck seems like it makes real good use of the Cascade mechanic, and it also makes good use of Baneslayer, with Archmages and discard to protect it. It looks like it would lose game 1 to Faeries, though it doesn’t look unwinnable by any means, and it looks to be something you can correct post-board.

I would probably add a couple of Shriekmaws, at least, so that you can have an early play that doesn’t mess up with Cascade. It’s also good to be able to kill Baneslayer in today’s format, and it goes around Archmage, and is something to bring back with Cruel, which is not irrelevant. I think cutting the two Ajanis and a Rhox War Monk for three Shriekmaws makes the deck a little better – though I’m Ajani’s biggest fan, I think you at least some need early plays, I can see nothing else to take out, and the 4 slot is already pretty crowded.

The sideboard definitely needs a fourth Stag. When we were testing against Faeries for Nationals, we had the plan of taking out all non-Stag cards and adding Captured Sunlights to get them as well, and try to just overwhelm them with Stags. That would be convenient for Red matches too, because Sunlight is pretty good against them, but nowadays most Faeries have Red for Lightning Bolt, so the plan of overwhelming them with Stags is not that appealing, and leaving in more three-mana cards like Esper Charm is probably better.

I would probably remove one Maelstrom Pulse for the fourth Stag. In fact, you might as well go and remove the last Pulse – I think Shriekmaw, an Infest (against Merfolk – just completely destroys them if they rely on Harm’s Way or Burrenton), a third Halo, or even a Captured Sunlight are all fine choices. In fact, I think Sunlight is the best of them all, since you board it in against a lot of things and it’s always a proxy of your best card when you do. Other than that, I like the sideboard a lot. It borrows the Blightning plan from Block, and that plan was pretty good there so it’s probably pretty good against Five-Color Control here too.

This deck would be a good starting point for Zendikar Standard. It’s basically Chapin’s block deck, but with Baneslayers.

5C Colfenor's Plans A Standard deck, by James Wise 4th place at a StarCityGames.com Standard Open tournament in Dallas, Texas, United States on 2009-08-30 As reported at http://www.starcitygames.com Print this deck!
Maindeck: Artifacts 1 Obelisk of Alara Creatures 2 Baneslayer Angel 4 Figure of Destiny 2 Kitchen Finks Enchantments 4 Colfenor's Plans	Instants 4 Cryptic Command 2 Double Negative 4 Esper Charm 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Path to Exile 2 Volcanic Fallout Legendary Creatures 2 Vendilion Clique Sorceries 2 Hallowed Burial 1 Identity Crisis Basic Lands 2 Plains Lands 3 Crumbling Necropolis 2 Exotic Orchard 1 Fetid Heath 4 Mystic Gate 4 Reflecting Pool 1 Vivid Crag 3 Vivid Creek 3 Vivid Meadow	Sideboard: 2 Pithing Needle 2 Anathemancer 1 Mind Control 2 Firespout 1 Hallowed Burial 2 Maelstrom Pulse 3 Thought Hemorrhage 2 Thoughtseize
Download this deck in Apprentice format!		Download this deck in Magic Online Text format!

I have to say I liked the Colfenor’s Plans idea when I read it from Sanchez, but this deck looks just terrible. It looks like those cards were thrown there for no reason, and 23 lands is just absurd. I would play 25 at the very least, most likely 26.

I don’t like Double Negative in this deck. I’d much rather have Negate or Essence Scatter. Figure of Destiny looks like the player just bought four foil copies and now wants to use them wherever he plays. What does it do for the deck? It’s an early drop, mana-hungry in a deck full of Vivids, that doesn’t want to attack. All it does is provide a sink for their removal once you’ve spent all your turns pumping it. I don’t like the Identity Crisis either. With Colfenor’s Plans and without Negate you cannot protect it, and the decks you want to resolve it against will not let you.

Overall, stay away from this deck. I wish I had brackets to see what this beat in the Top 8. I hope it’s not the Faeries deck, or I’ll have to hide from Kyle Sanchez for a month. If you want to play Colfenor’s Plans, which looks powerful, I’d try the UBR build that Sanchez mentioned. That way you should have a good match against Faeries (which this version cannot possibly beat, if I might add) while having a reasonable match against other decks too. On that topic, Gerard Fabiano’s Grixis deck also looks good.

R/B Aggro A Standard deck, by Miles Mishkin 5th place at a StarCityGames.com Standard Open tournament in Dallas, Texas, United States on 2009-08-30 As reported at http://www.starcitygames.com Print this deck!
Maindeck: Creatures 3 Anathemancer 4 Boggart Ram-Gang 4 Demigod of Revenge 4 Figure of Destiny 4 Jund Hackblade 1 Tattermunge Maniac Instants 3 Flame Javelin 4 Lightning Bolt 3 Magma Spray 2 Volcanic Fallout 1 Wild Ricochet	Sorceries 4 Blightning Basic Lands 12 Mountain Lands 4 Auntie's Hovel 4 Dragonskull Summit 4 Graven Cairns	Sideboard: 1 Anathemancer 3 Goblin Outlander 2 Guttural Response 1 Magma Spray 2 Volcanic Fallout 2 Wild Ricochet 4 Deathmark
Download this deck in Apprentice format!		Download this deck in Magic Online Text format!

This deck has some numbers that strike me as pretty odd. Three Anathemancers, for example – I think there is no reason not to play four right now. One Wild Ricochet – cute, but I’d play it in the sideboard. Three Javelin and two Fallout are just awkward, and I see no advantages to playing Magma Spray over those. I suppose 20 three-drops are a lot, but I don’t think much can be done about it, other than not playing this deck. I also think Doom Blade is much better than Magma Spray right now. There are some things I like, though, mainly 4 Demigods – though Path to Exile is rampant now, I think you need those if you want to win.

I’d cut the Maniac, the Ricochet, and 3 Magma Spray for fours on Fallout, Javelin, and Anathemancer, and cut it down to 60 cards. Playing 61 cards is generally bad, but when your 61st card is a singleton Tattermunge Maniac, it’s just awkward.

I also don’t really like the Jund Hackblades – I don’t understand his choices. He wants to race, but then only has three Javelins? I would cut them all and play some maindeck Doom Blades or Shriekmaws, as you absolutely have to be able to kill Baneslayer in today’s format. Four is probably excessive, and you need some more creatures, which brings us to the eternal problem of RB – the two-drops (I refuse to count Hellspark Elemental as a creature). I suppose Stigma Lasher and Goblin Outlander are your two best choices, and a 2-2 split with the removal can be ran, or 3 Doom Blades and 3 Fallouts.

I disagree almost entirely with the sideboard. Deathmark is just worse than Doom Blade. Both kill Baneslayer and Burrenton, but Doom Blade also kills Mistbind Clique, Archmage, Vendilion, etc, and it seems far more relevant than killing Putrid Leech, which you don’t really care about. One Magma Spray in the sideboard also doesn’t make sense – what do you want it against? -and I don’t like Guttural Response anywhere, let alone in this deck.It’s too reactive a card with too few targets. Now that people aren’t running as many Agony Warps as before, you have even less targets.

Goblin Outlander also strikes me as pretty odd in the board. If you want something for Kithkin, then play Chaotic Backlash or Infest. I suppose you would also board this in against the UW deck, but it doesn’t seem very exciting either. This brings me to the same problem GW has – its sideboard is terrible. There is nothing very relevant against Five-Color Control, since you should already maindeck the 4 Anathemancers, and you can’t really deal with the cards they bring against you without being too reactive (and some you just can’t deal with even if you want to be reactive, like Runed Halo).

Overall, I don’t like this deck (surprise surprise). I don’t think RB has the curve it needs to compete right now, with one good one-drop, zero good two-drops, and a billion three-drops. The format is definitely not healthy for it with Baneslayers everywhere.

Faeries A Standard deck, by Haibing Hu 6th place at a StarCityGames.com Standard Open tournament in Dallas, Texas, United States on 2009-08-30 As reported at http://www.starcitygames.com Print this deck!
Maindeck: Creatures 4 Mistbind Clique 4 Scion of Oona 3 Sower of Temptation 4 Spellstutter Sprite Instants 3 Broken Ambitions 4 Cryptic Command 3 Doom Blade Legendary Creatures 3 Vendilion Clique	Sorceries 3 Thoughtseize Tribal Enchantments 4 Bitterblossom Basic Lands 6 Island 4 Swamp Lands 4 Drowned Catacomb 4 Mutavault 4 Secluded Glen 3 Sunken Ruins	Sideboard: 1 Sower of Temptation 1 Doom Blade 3 Flashfreeze 2 Negate 1 Vendilion Clique 3 Jace Beleren 3 Deathmark 1 Thoughtseize
Download this deck in Apprentice format!		Download this deck in Magic Online Text format!

Ah, the best deck in this top 8! (kidding, kidding – okay, maybe not).

I have to say I prefer my build (which would be -1 Clique -1 Seize -1 Sower +1 Land +1 Essence Scatter +1 removal), but this build looks fine too. You can see that the player, like the one in the Cascade deck, thought about what he was doing – he has 6 discard spells, and then 3 Sowers once the discard clears the way.

I like the switch to Doom Blade – though it hurts you against Jund, because of Putrid Leech, it’s necessary for Baneslayer and Plumeveil. My choice of removal would be 3 Doom Blade, 1 Agony Warp. I also like 26 Lands – 2 Gargoyle Castle is better. I’ve had trouble with lands in Faeries for a long time, and now you have the opportunity to play 26 and not flood.

The sideboard, however, I don’t like. If you are playing 3 Doom Blades main, why a fourth after board? What do you want it against? I think both Deathmark and Agony Warp are better sideboard options if you want more removal.

Flashfreeze and Jace, I think, are worse right now, because of Great Sable Stag. You cannot afford to give them more cards, because they will draw into cards you have no answer for, and you cannot flood your hand with Counterspells when they play cards you cannot counter. Jace is still very good against all the non-Stag control decks, such as UW and Reveillark builds, but I don’t think it’s worth it right now – you don’t really need it to beat those.

Overall, I still like this more than the Red version, but if you play Red please don’t play the Top 16 version with 24 lands and two Earthquakes. Seriously, what’s with those people playing a lot less lands than they should?

Merfolk A Standard deck, by James Nikzad 7th place at a StarCityGames.com Standard Open tournament in Dallas, Texas, United States on 2009-08-30 As reported at http://www.starcitygames.com Print this deck!
Maindeck: Creatures 2 Merfolk Sovereign 4 Merrow Reejerey 4 Reveillark 4 Silvergill Adept 4 Stonybrook Banneret 4 Wake Thrasher Instants 4 Cryptic Command 4 Path to Exile Legendary Creatures 4 Sygg, River Guide	Tribal Instants 2 Sage's Dousing Basic Lands 8 Island 2 Plains Lands 4 Glacial Fortress 4 Mutavault 2 Mystic Gate 4 Wanderwine Hub	Sideboard: 4 Burrenton Forge-Tender 3 Meddling Mage 3 Sower of Temptation 3 Harm's Way 2 Sleep
Download this deck in Apprentice format!		Download this deck in Magic Online Text format!

This is just like the other Merfolk deck, minus Harm’s Way and with FOUR Reveillarks, so I won’t dwell on it.

5-Color Bloodbraid A Standard deck, by Zach Krizan 8th place at a StarCityGames.com Standard Open tournament in Dallas, Texas, United States on 2009-08-30 As reported at http://www.starcitygames.com Print this deck!
Maindeck: Creatures 4 Bloodbraid Elf 3 Great Sable Stag 4 Kitchen Finks 4 Putrid Leech Instants 2 Bituminous Blast 4 Cryptic Command Planeswalkers 2 Ajani Vengeant 2 Chandra Nalaar 2 Jace Beleren	Sorceries 2 Cruel Ultimatum 4 Maelstrom Pulse 2 Sign in Blood Basic Lands 1 Forest 1 Mountain 1 Swamp Lands 3 Flooded Grove 4 Reflecting Pool 3 Twilight Mire 2 Vivid Crag 4 Vivid Creek 4 Vivid Grove 2 Vivid Marsh	Sideboard: 2 Anathemancer 3 Burrenton Forge-Tender 2 Recumbent Bliss 2 Runed Halo 4 Volcanic Fallout 2 Identity Crisis
Download this deck in Apprentice format!		Download this deck in Magic Online Text format!

This deck was fine, until it got to “Planeswalkers.” Why on earth does it play Chandras? I can’t see them being good, or remotely better than Ajani, or even more Bituminous Blasts.

I’ve never been a fan of the 5c aggro strategy, to be honest - I don’t think this mana works for an aggro deck. Sign in Blood doesn’t make much sense to me in this strategy, and four Pulses look very excessive – you don’t want to Cascade into them all the time. I think you need a number of Fallouts to be competitive, at least two – I would take out the Sign in Bloods, two Jace, two Chandra and two Pulse for 3 Fallouts, 1 Bituminous Blast, 1 Stag, two Shriekmaws and a 26th Land.

The sideboard is a bit awkward – I assume Recumbent Bliss is there for Colossus, but in this case isn’t Path just better? 2 Anathemancer is also a bit weird, though I understand wanting to play around their Runed Halo – but, in that case, I would probably just prefer playing something else and attacking them through a different angle than life points, since one Anathemancer is not going to kill them by itself. If you move the Fallouts maindeck, then you get slots that could become a third Anathemancer (or fourth) and perhaps some Baneslayers, which are better than Forge-Tender as I see it, and even better in combination with them. Burrenton stalls the game early so you can play the Angel and then protect it.

Overall, I think the Baneslayer deck that placed third is better than this one – it’s more focused on what it wants to do, and doesn’t have nearly as much risk of “fizzling” with Cascade as this one does.

…

Well, this is it. If I had to rank the decks in this Top 8 in order of the likelihood I would play them, it would be:

- Faeries
- 5c Cascade Baneslayer
- 5c aggro
- Merfolk #1
- Merfolk #2
- GW
- RB
- Colfenor’s Plans

Though, honestly, I can see myself playing the first two but none of the latter, Not because Merfolk are bad, but because Faeries are better, GW because it has no interaction, RB because it doesn’t beat Baneslayer, and the Colfenor’s Plans because, well, it has 23 lands to begin with.

I really think the format right now has evolved so that Baneslayer is the key card – build your decks to beat it, or you’ll lose to it. That means playing more Paths, Sowers, Doom Blades, and fewer Agony Warps, Magma Sprays, and Harm’s Ways. I don’t understand people playing Broodmate Dragon over Baneslayer Angel, like some people in the Top 16 were doing. I think the potential to single-handedly win games is too good to pass up.

After last week, I got a lot of messages on which Faeries list I would play. I haven’t played since Nationals, but I think it’s probably the list I would play anyway, except -3 Agony Warp +3 Doom Blade. I really like the numbers on that one, and nothing has changed much – all the things that changed only make Faeries better. Another card that has gotten better, with Merfolk and Baneslayer, is Sower of Temptation – you might want to play more of those in the board.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this, and see you next week!

PV