I haven't come around to posting the decklists of last month's top 6. Apologies for that. Amongst others I have been studying for a TMap Next Foundation exam which I aced yesterday (well, okay, I got 90% of the questions right, close enough right?). So, I'm really happy and with a little bit of luck I'll have some more free time in december.
Anyway, you read it right. A top 6, because only 6 players showed up. A lot of regulars couldn't make it, so we're hoping this is not a trend. A few regulars moved out (of Groningen) or quit magic though in the past half year, so we are looking for fresh blood (queue vampire jokes).
Though I don't have the decklists, I can give you a quick summary of the tournament. There were 4 Thopter Foundry decks. Two standard affinity builds, one wUB affinity build (with basic lands?), and one combo build with Ashnod's Altar. The other two decks were a Taïga deck and my own B/R aggro hand build (with Hymn to Tourach, Blightning, Chittering Rats, and Funeral Charm, and 3 Vampire Nighthawk and 2 Torrent of Souls).
We did get the chance to play 5 rounds by playing each opponent once. I lost, as expected, to Taïga. The deck is too aggressive for my 4 Vampire Lacerators and 4 Carnophage. I also lost 1-2 in a really awkard match vs the weird affinity Thopter Foundry deck. The last game was really awful. I muliganned and kept an opener with 1 land, a Dark Ritual and some quick beats. I subsequently drew nearly every mana source in my deck and imagine I would have lost even to a Homelands sealed deck with that draw. I handily defeated the other three Thopter builds though, gleefully bashing up on artifact land with my sideboarded Gorilla Shaman and disrupting their hand with just a little bit too much discard spells.
My deck, off the top of my head, looked something like this. It plays pretty well, and the Rakdos Carnarium means your light land count doesn't really matter, because you'll reach that magical 5 mana to cast that devastating Torrent of Souls anyway. That card is sick by the way!
Martijn Hennink - BR Hand
4th place (9 points)
Creatures
4 Carnophage
4 Vampire Lacerator
4 Blind Creeper
4 Dauthi Slayer
4 Chittering Rats
3 Vampire Nighthawk (U)
Spells
4 Dark Ritual
4 Funeral Charm
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Blightning
2 Torrent of Souls (U)
Mana
4 Rakdos Carnarium
13 Swamp
4 Teetering Peaks
Sideboard
SB: 4 Gorilla Shaman
SB: 4 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 3 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 2 Flaring Pain
SB: 2 Smash to Smithereens
Nov 25, 2009
Nov 14, 2009
Banned List Update
Yet again, there's been an update to the banned list. As of 14/11/2009 all the artifact lands are once again banned in peasant tournaments in Groningen. Despite all good intentions, Affinity has risen to the top again, and has been one of three tier 1 decks in the past half year. The lands were almost exclusively used in affinity, and using them in other strategies (such as Trinket Mage) hasn't been succesful. Instead of banning more pieces of the great artifact puzzle we decided that there is no love lost for the deck, and just rebanned the lands. We can merely learn from our mistakes, at least we tried.
Thopter Foundry has been a huge factor in the succes of the neo-Affinity decks, but without the lands we don't feel it is as dangerous anymore. Because the combo with Sword of the Meek (and Ashnod's Altar) still exist, we did decide to add it to the watchlist.
The second tier 1 deck has been Faeries. Basically there were two builds. One utilized Force of Will, a very powerful card to be sure. The other build abused Counterbalance. While the power level didn't differ much, the second build was considerably less fun to play against. In an attempt to revitalize the metagame and make it more fun we decided to ban Counterbalance.
The third tier 1 deck is Mono Black Control. The deck drifts in and out of competition, winning tournaments whenever aggro is the dominant archetype. In an attempt to make the deck more fair without neutering its core concept, we banned Skeletal Scrying. It is the only card in the metagame that consistently draws more than 3 cards, at instant speed, in a mono black deck. That gave MBC just a little bit too much reach, and we look forward to what uncommon MBC will play in its stead.
If you were thinking Demonic Tutor, think again. Another unfun deck, to play against at least, is the non-ineractive Grapeshot Combo deck. Demonic Consultation and Demonic Tutor were banned to make that deck less consistent in its draws, while at the same time making sure their storm count doesn't rack up as fast.
Two other popular combo decks, Dirty Kitty and ElfBall, were left untouched. They are a lot more interactive, and the past showed us that a wider range of decks can sideboard effectively against the two strategies. We are okay with combo decks, but they have to offer more interactivity and just a little bit less consistency to remain fun to play against.
Of course, banning the artifact lands has the side effect of other cards becoming much less impressive. As a result, Cranial Plating is unbanned as of 14/11/2009, and Disciple of the Vault has been removed from the watchlist.
We are eager to see if the bannings will have the desired results: a more varied metagame that is more fun to play than before. We do believe we made some steps in the right direction, neutering black-based Combo and MBC, and removing Affinity and Counterbalance from the metagame.
To see the full list of banned cards, click here.
Thopter Foundry has been a huge factor in the succes of the neo-Affinity decks, but without the lands we don't feel it is as dangerous anymore. Because the combo with Sword of the Meek (and Ashnod's Altar) still exist, we did decide to add it to the watchlist.
The second tier 1 deck has been Faeries. Basically there were two builds. One utilized Force of Will, a very powerful card to be sure. The other build abused Counterbalance. While the power level didn't differ much, the second build was considerably less fun to play against. In an attempt to revitalize the metagame and make it more fun we decided to ban Counterbalance.
The third tier 1 deck is Mono Black Control. The deck drifts in and out of competition, winning tournaments whenever aggro is the dominant archetype. In an attempt to make the deck more fair without neutering its core concept, we banned Skeletal Scrying. It is the only card in the metagame that consistently draws more than 3 cards, at instant speed, in a mono black deck. That gave MBC just a little bit too much reach, and we look forward to what uncommon MBC will play in its stead.
If you were thinking Demonic Tutor, think again. Another unfun deck, to play against at least, is the non-ineractive Grapeshot Combo deck. Demonic Consultation and Demonic Tutor were banned to make that deck less consistent in its draws, while at the same time making sure their storm count doesn't rack up as fast.
Two other popular combo decks, Dirty Kitty and ElfBall, were left untouched. They are a lot more interactive, and the past showed us that a wider range of decks can sideboard effectively against the two strategies. We are okay with combo decks, but they have to offer more interactivity and just a little bit less consistency to remain fun to play against.
Of course, banning the artifact lands has the side effect of other cards becoming much less impressive. As a result, Cranial Plating is unbanned as of 14/11/2009, and Disciple of the Vault has been removed from the watchlist.
We are eager to see if the bannings will have the desired results: a more varied metagame that is more fun to play than before. We do believe we made some steps in the right direction, neutering black-based Combo and MBC, and removing Affinity and Counterbalance from the metagame.
To see the full list of banned cards, click here.
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