Hey folks long time I haven’t done one of my Top 8 analysis standard edition, in this one specially since Tarkir has had plenty of time to shift the meta a bit, let’s take a look at this Arena Tournament from our friend Rapsolo’s Arena Tournament
8th UR Aggro Alexxitoo
Cori-Steel Cutter is heavily present in this edition, powerful Flurry effect card to get some critter with Prowess out, you might wipe the board but the artifact still in play just shreds away the hope to balance the game out, and this UR mix is all about creating the perfect opportunity between attack and standby.
WG Aggro from Jorges14, great shift for the Selesnya meta play, with a simple strategy to be comfortable with mana output the early turns of the games with Llanowar Elves and Lumbering Worldwagon and a bit of Swiss Army knife abilities Trostani, Three Whispers, and capitalizing Survival mechanics of Rip, Spawn Hunter, this is a great deck for good pilots no pun intended, beat the odds with great forshadowing.
MrHeavyDutty bringing the black aggro control cards to a knife party, a simple combination of Duress, Deep-cavern bat and a trusty Liliana of the veil for the discard engine to take place, and let the table efficiency hit hard Preacher of Schism making the best of state of the game and Sheoldred, The Apocalypse putting life total pressure on the draw mechanics.
You know how this works bleed your cards out, dead creatures, and life total going down, fun deck!
Not your typical Azorius control but aggro instead by our event host Rapsolo himself, piloting Azorius aggro your typical WB critters with Sanguine EvangelistMockingbird, Novice Inspector making way for the pump up creatures Regal Bunicorn and Warden of the Inner Sky Rapsolo was nothing but a mastermind including Elspeth, Storm Slayer, but he proved to be a mortal when he included a single piece of counterspell No More Lies, but hey still a fun deck nonetheless.
I am actually not mad that this deck is present, is the only mono red instance of the mice hate gang been a while since this guys hit the bar for a joke, Monastery Swiftspear, Hired Claw, Heartfire Hero for the one mana critters, Manifold Mouse, Emberheart Challenger for the 2 mana turn mice, this is where things get different, we have Tersa Lightshatter allowing you to dig deeper the topdeck which sometimes this deck lacks a way to get the next threat going to finish the game as the board wipes hit the mice club, and you know them by now a bunch of spells to finish your opponent. and a single copy of Abrade to master your topdecking skills.
This is where things got weird we a Dimir Aggro at 2nd and 3rd place, this decks centers on Ninjutsu Kaito, Bane of nightmares as soon as you can, with a bit of control critters, Deep-Cavern Bat into Kaito is just insane or the Spyglass Siren, or pretty much anyone else is just a type of strategy to follow along with Kaito, this deck is just a little bit avobe average fast to create action rather than reaction and just mess the opponent plays.
2nd Place Dimir not so far from our previous Dimir, minus the Gix's Command and the Fountainport the strategy remains the same, Ninjutsu Kaito the best way you can, crucial critters and timely spells thrown out Phantom Interference in this house we don’t approve the use of counterspells.
Okay for the mighty win Ferrero Blue for a heavily intended Cori-Steel Cutter, Blue and Red no counterspell in sight, this is pure spellslinger your way out of this, Monastery SwiftspearSlickshot Show-off and Thundertrap Trainer, with a fuel draw engine spells to enable the Cori-Steel Cutter, and don’t let that Stormchaser's talent sit in the table too long, as it re-enable spells and Prowess Otters hitting the board, so yeah, hard to deal with everything at once.
I am a bit rejoiced the fact that there aren’t any of the old enchantment threats, Green overlord was getting tiring with the Beanstalk, and Abuelo’s into Omniscience, that was terrible to fight aginst only if either you main disenchant or some graveyard exile mechanic.
Though blue is heavily present, only a few counterspell made their way which is nice.
Give the dragons a fighting chance to be present I know they will show up sooner or later.
May this blessing protect your spells, Code is out!
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