Thursday, August 28, 2014

The Count Down is ON! Khans

The count down is on! With Khans of Tarkir just around the corner, Wizardden.com and all the other stores are gearing up for an exciting pre-release. As players though we have something else to think about. We only have one month’s worth of FNMs before our favorite cards from Ravnica and 2014 rotate out. Think back to all those wonderful ideas you had about cards when they were first spoiled, now is your last chance to share them. Today I am highlighting some mostly forgotten cards and interactions in hopes many players will show off their creativity and remember what it’s like to put a deck together strictly because it’s fun.

I started this article with a quick gatherer search of what is rotating. I decided to start with the highest converted mana costs and work my way down. With that in mind I would like to kick this off with the beautiful interactions available with Enter the Infinite. Blast of Genius and Riddle of Lightning allow for some ridiculous damage output. Add Worldspine Wurm for some more high CMC cards to throw at your opponent. I also am reminded of a deck ramping with Zhur-Taa Ancient into Borborygmos Enraged, Enter the Infinite, and Clan Defiance.
With some sense of irony I will address Dismiss into Dream which as with many cards mentioned here were quickly dismissed after release. There are a fair amount of cards that target opponent’s creatures and a quick ramp build could support the cost. Bow of Nylea, Izzet Staticaster, and Polukranos, World Eater are the first to come to mind. Kiora’s Follower helps you get there and then turns to killing off your opponent’s dudes.
Garruk’s Horde plays nice with Courser of Kruphix in today’s red green monster variants. While we’re at it, lets not forget that Aurelia, the Warleader has an amusing relationship with Felhide Spiritbinder when you have enough mana dorks in play. Master of Cruelties in tandem with cards like Razortip Whip all supported by so counterspells and removal can actually steal a fair amount of matches out of sheer surprise.
Pontiff of the Blight was one of my favorites that never was. Now with Chord of Calling and many mana dorks it may just have a chance. Dork spam > chord out the pontiff > untap > cast a dork and extort like crazy. On a similar note who can forget Sphinx of the Chimes discarding all the Shadowborn Apostles you can get your hands on.
We might not have Knowledge Pool to work with, but we do have Possibility Storm. Add an Eidolon of Rhetoric to the equation and no one will be able to cast spells or mill out. Laugh as no one can win unless their is a clear boardstate advantage. Another amusing one is an old favorite of mine; Ajani’s Chosen with Mana Bloom for all the kitties. Whispering Madness and Notion Thief generate an overwhelming advantage as well if they get set up.
How can anyone forget about Master Biomancer? Master of Waves, Kalonian Hydra, Prime Speaker Zegana, Raise the Alarm, and so many other cards get so gross with him in play. Ogre Battle Driver has a similar yet more aggressive approach. Of course there are many more wonderful cards that did not receive a highlight here. Take a moment and do your own search through your boxes or on the web. Dust off your wildest dreams and let them live out these last few weeks. Lastly please share all your crazy ideas with us here at Wizardden.com.

Monday, August 25, 2014

HUGE changes to standard rotation and block structure!!!

Hey everybody! This morning Mark Rosewater dropped a pretty big bomb on us and I want to talk about these changes and what they might mean for players and shop owners.

First off, starting in Fall of 2015, blocks will no longer consist of 3 sets. Instead we will get a Fall set like normal, and a Winter set that belongs to that block... and that's it. No 3rd spring set anymore. Where the Spring set would normally be in the same block for the year, instead we're getting a completely new Block with it's second set replacing the usual Summer Core Set.

That's huge right?!?!

No more Core sets! Not sure if that's completely a good thing or bad thing, but it's interesting at the least. This might mean that newer players will have to jump in the deep end, so to speak, while there is no 'simple' set to help them understand the basics of the game. However, this greatly caters to the already advanced level of competitive and casual players alike as we get more mechanics throughout the year on top of a higher power level of cards being released. Core Sets generally tend to have weaker cards on average than a regular block would, so this is great for those craving stronger cards(like myself).

So we're getting 2 blocks a year, each including two sets(most likely a Large-Small format), and cutting the Summer Core Set. So what else does that affect? Well...

The rotation structure is getting quite the makeover as well. As it is now, Every Fall set that comes out, pushes out the Fall block of two years ago and the previous year's Summer Core Set from the Standard format. Starting with the Fall expansion of 2015, standard rotation will only keep the newest 3 Blocks in standard at all times. Since we'll be getting 2 blocks a year, with sets releasing approximately every three months, each block will only be standard legal for 18 months. The biggest problem this might incur is that players will have to purchase new cards to continue playing Standard, knowing that they don't get as much time with those cards. For players, I don't think this really changes how much money/resources you'll need to spend on getting new cards to keep up with Standard, since the same amount of sets are still coming out each year. The only big difference is the amount of time you get to use those cards in standard.

Block formats will still follow the same rules as they do today except that you obviously only get 1 or 2 sets for each block instead of a potential 3.

What this means for shops.

I think this will help a lot of shops combat the dreaded 'Core Set Blues' where most shops complain about poor sales between the Summer Core Set release and the next Fall expansion. With every set being part of a block and important to Standard, sales should be more consistent throughout the year! This also looks to improve the interest in drafts, as we'll often have more popular sets to draft with and that should help shops as well seeing as more events will most likely occur.

For players, I think the biggest change to need to get used to, is speculation on card prices. Since new blocks always offer new mechanics, and we get a new block twice a year, it'll be a little more difficult to predict which cards will hold value better. The fact that the new blocks, and with it the new mechanics, come out much quicker than normal, means that players will need to act much faster on their predictions than before. Not very often does a second or third set of a block come out with cards that completely change the format. It's usually the Fall set that ushers the biggest changes, obviously because of rotating cards/mechanics. Archetypes in the Standard format will be changing heavily every 6 months with each new Block and players will need to be much more careful with their speculations, if they wish to stay ahead of the meta once the new system takes effect.

All in all, I'm pretty excited for this. I don't yet see a real negative from the new system. The most exciting thing for me, is that because we're getting a new block every 6 months, spoiler season will be much more exciting all year long! I also appreciate the idea of a format that changes much more often, giving players a lot more creative space throughout the year for deck design, while keeping the format from going stale while waiting for the next Fall set to come out and bring in something fresh.


Let me know what you guys think of the changes for next Fall in the comments below!

DannyO
WizardDen.com

Friday, August 22, 2014

8 Rack and Bogles

Hey all! Today I wanted to talk to you about some Modern! There's a Modern PTQ coming up this weekend that I've been preparing for and I wanted to blab out my thoughts a bit. I have two decks put together that I can play and short of borrowing something from someone else, It's between 8 Rack and Bogles!



If you're unfamiliar with 8 Rack, let me break it down for you. It's super annoying to play against, locks you out of combat, destroys your hand, and kills you with some number and combination of The Rack and/or Shrieking Affliction.

Here's my current list;

Land: 22
2 Blinkmoth Nexus
2 Dakmor Salvage
4 Godless Shrine
4 Isolated Chapel
4 Marsh Flats
5 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Spells: 38
3 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Ghostly Prison
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Lingering Souls
2 Path to Exile
4 The Rack
3 Raven's Crime
4 Shrieking Affliction
4 Thoughtseize
3 Wrench Mind

Sideboard: 15
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Ghostly Prison
2 Kataki, War's Wage
4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Rest in Peace
2 Stony Silence
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Wrench Mind

As you can see, there are a lot of hand hate spells, 14 total, plus 4 Liliana of the Veil to keep their hand light or non-existent. The first 2-3 turns is where you'll focus on their hand and remove any threats that might disrupt your plan. The plan, is usually to resolve an Ensnaring Bridge or Ghostly Prison to prevent their creatures from attacking you, no matter how many or how big. The bridge actually effects all players, not just your opponent, so you might be asking why I have Blinkmoth Nexus and Lingering Souls in here. Well, the short answer is because they are great at stalling the game to help you get your lock on board. The long answer is that they are actually a more consistent and often more reliable win condition for you. The deck likes it when both you and your opponent are in "top-deck" mode, meaning that neither of you have a hand and are just playing whatever you draw each turn. When you draw your card for your turn, creatures with power 1 or less can attack under the bridge, so you can attack with the Nexus or Souls, play your card, pass turn and now you have no hand so your opponent's creatures can't attack unless they have a power of 0. The downside to that, is Affinity can actually do that because they have Signal Pests and Ornithopters, assuming they haven't put any +1/+1 counters on them with Steel Overseer. Once they attack, they can equip a Cranial Plating or sacrifice everything to an Arcbound Ravager to pump the creature for a finishing strike. This is the reason why Kataki, War's Wage and Stony Silence are in the sideboard. This usually isn't too big of a problem with Path to Exile, and Ghostly Prison costs too much for them, usually, to pay for the attack and equip a plating.

The deck is actually super fun to play and I personally feel that it has a strong match against just about anything. Against any aggressive strategies, you just slam a Prison and/or a Bridge and then it's just a matter of time to get set up to win. Against combo decks, you disrupt their hand so much that they can't get what they need. For control match-ups, they can often rely on killing you with enough burn and Snapcaster Mages which is rough because there's no life-gain in the deck, but hand disruption hits them hard, and you can bring in Leyline of Sanctity to stop that strategy. The hardest time this deck will have, is against opposing hand disruption. Taking out your Lily or Bridge can be huge. Luckily, the Leylines stop that too!

With how well I talk about it, it does have some downsides. It suffers from bad draws. You can have a seemingly good hand but the deck often isn't consistent enough to find a Bridge or Prison to lock up the ground and you'll get beaten down by a Tarmogoyf or Vendillion Clique while you draw a bunch of useless discard spells or lands. It doesn't help that there's nothing to draw you extra cards. Dark Confidant would make a great inclusion here, however, the deck spends a lot of time getting set up to win even after you have a bridge locking things up and the Confidant will more often kill you before you have a chance to kill them. The same argument goes for Bitterblossom. Too often have I lost games in playtesting to my own Bitterblossom that I just cut it for the full set of Lingering Souls.

Well, that's 8 Rack! I'm really happy I built it. It's a lot of fun, but it's usually best when no one is expecting it. Larger competitive events are where the deck would likely perform best. It's not really geared to handle the random "FNM" decks.

Anyway, the other deck I mention was Bogles. A personal favorite of mine! Long before I actually committed to playing Modern, Bogles was a deck that I knew I wanted to play. It isn't terribly expensive to build(roughly the same price as Tron or Affinity) so I put it together. I'll talk about the awesomeness of the slippery beasts after I expose my list to all;

Lands: 20
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Forest
4 Horizon Canopy
2 Plains
4 Razorverge Thicket
4 Temple Garden
4 Verdant Catacombs

Creatures: 12
4 Gladecover Scout
4 Kor Spiritdancer
4 Slippery Bogle

Spells: 28
4 Daybreak Coronet
4 Ethereal Armor
4 Hyena Umbra
2 Path to Exile
4 Rancor
4 Spider Umbra
2 Spirit Mantle
2 Suppression Field
2 Unflinching Courage

Sideboard: 15
2 Nature's Claim
4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Path to Exile
2 Rest in Peace
1 Spirit Link
2 Stony Silence
2 Torpor Orb

This deck is even more straightforward than 8 Rack. Play a Hexproof creature, put a LOT of enchantments on it and attack until dead. There are a lot of cool things going on in here though. If you're not familiar with the cards in here, there are some cool effects. Basically, the Totem Armors are super OP. The Totem Armor mechanic reads; "Totem armor (If enchanted creature would be destroyed, instead remove all damage from it and destroy this Aura.)". The first time I read this, the first question that popped into my head was, "What happens if there are 2 enchantments with Totem Armor on it?". A little rules digging found me a disturbing answer. Basically, you just pick one and destroy that and the rest stay on the creature. Not only is your creature Hexproof and essentially indestructible, but you have to have a way to kill it multiple times to get through the armors! You couldn't ask for a better enchantment for this deck... except maybe Daybreak Coronet. While it requires you to already have an enchantment on your creature before casting this, the benefit granted here is backbreaking... for your opponent! +3/+3, First Strike, Vigilance and Lifelink. It's really too bad you can only run 4 of these in your deck. Anyway, you get the idea of the deck.

As it is now, I would not take this to the PTQ. Having only played the deck for a couple weeks now, I'm not too confident with it, especially with how much of a glass cannon it is, but I definitely think it can steal its way to the top fairly well. The changes I am looking at making is mostly in the sideboard, but the mana base as well. For the lands, I want to squeeze in 3 Misty Rainforests and a second Dryad Arbor. I spent some time researching the deck and reading articles on it, and it's very important to have that Arbor in games where your opening hand doesn't have a hexproof creature. With 7 Fetches to grab the Arbor, it greatly increases my chances of being able to play the deck as it's meant to be played... with a creature on board!

The mana base I'm thinking about looks like this;

Lands: 21
2 Dryad Arbor
4 Horizon Canopy
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Plains
4 Razorverge Thicket
3 Temple Garden
4 Verdant Catacombs

Another interesting thing I learned was that there are matches where you need to board in so much hate, that you can't take out all the enchantments because you won't be able to produce a big enough threat. The strategy there was to board out all of your hexproof creatures instead. Sounds crazy right?! I thought so. I STILL think so! If you do it this way, you rely on your fetches to find a Dryad Arbor while you still have enough enchantments in the deck to make it a formidable foe. You just have to be really careful about decks that have access to removal spells for your Arbor since it's not Hexproof. Usually putting a Totem Armor or 2 on it is enough to keep it safe. Path to Exile is a thing though.

I also mentioned some sideboard changes. The Leylines come out for sure. They're great against hand disruption which severely cripples this deck, but the decks that run Thoughtseize, probably don't have many ways to kill a land/creature. An example is that Abrupt Decay says 'Non-land' creature. Anything else they have has to get through the Totem Armors first. Tron is a really popular archetype in my area but it seems to be a fairly easy match-up since I can go so much faster than they can. Even if they hit a Karn on turn 3, they can only exile one of my lands or enchantments and that's not enough to slow me down. So I'm not wasting the board slots on it.

Living End is a deck that I'm fairly worried about, but I only know of one person who plays it around here so I might just hope that I don't play against it and not use up space in the sideboard for it, but the sideboard is usually just Rest in Peace, which I have anyway, or Relic of Progenitus. The best use for Relic over RIP, is that when they cascade into Living End, you get to keep your creature/s in the graveyard in case they cast it again. This and Storm are good enough reasons to just have 3-4 Relic of Progenitus in the board and call it good.

The two most popular decks are Pod and Twin so I definitely need some hate for those decks. Affinity is a big one too, but I'll just have a little extra lifelink in the board in addition to the Nature's Claims I have there. For Pod and Twin, Torpor Orb hits them both pretty hard while being a permanent that's difficult for them to interact with. Pod has Qasali Pridemage to kill it and Twin can bounce it with Cryptic Command. Paired with Suppression Fields, Pod will have an extremely difficult, if not impossible, time dealing with either the Field or Orb. Paired with Spellskites, Twin will have to get through that first before being able to get rid of the Orb and then combo off.

All that being said, I think my sideboard will look like this;

2 Nature's Claim
4 Relic of Progenitus
2 Spellskite
1 Spirit Link
4 Suppression Field
2 Torpor Orb

Anyway, that's it for my Modern decks. If you have any thoughts on my card choices and theories, let me know in the comments!

Thanks for reading guys,

DannyO
WizardDen.com

Friday, August 15, 2014

M15 limited tips and tricks!

Hey everybody! Today I'd like to share with you guys some of the things I've learned about M15 limited since doing Pre-release events, drafts and a Team Sealed Grand Prix last weekend in Portland. With an individual M15 sealed GP coming up soon in Salt Lake, I'm staying focused on my goals of making day two at a GP for the first time and in a format where I usually excel in, I'm hoping to make that a reality!

First off, one of the biggest things I picked up at GP Portland last weekend, was that your success can heavily depend on the pool you receive. My team went undefeated with a pretty sick pool in a Team Sealed Practice event the night before the main event and we were super stoked going into Day-1. Once we got our pool for the GP, we quickly determined that it did not build as good of decks as our pool the previous night did. However, I also noticed that we forced the same archetypes we had done so well with before and even though we blatantly knew that our decks were weaker, we stuck with it anyway. It came back to bite us as we quickly dropped at 1-3. The biggest thing to take from this(myself included) is that if you are used to forcing a certain archetype or color combination in M15 limited(or any limited format for that matter) because it's really good, you need to be careful that you realize when it's bad and to try something else. Instead of forcing the Red/Green stompy deck that is usually really good in M15, we should have looked at a Black/Green or Blue/Red to see if they fit better. We would have had a much better shot at the GP if we just took the time to line up the combinations and weigh the differences. We literally just went straight for building Black/Blue, Red/Green, and Green/White like we usually do and didn't look at anything else.

Don't do that!

Another interesting thing I've picked up is not to be close minded on certain cards. When I look at my pools, I usually sort each color in two piles. One with cards I consider playable, and the other is non-playable cards. One example is Satyr Wayfinder. It's a card I generally would never play for the risk of throwing away your bombs. However, I had the amazing opportunity to play against two of the Channel Fireball pros; Matthew Costa and Owen Turtenwald and BOTH of them were playing Satyr Wayfinder against me. Costa cast Restock a couple of times in our round so it was obvious that it wasn't the worst thing to be doing there, but I saw no graveyard interaction from Owen after he played a Wayfinder. It really got me thinking outside the box on the card.

I'm going to do a quick relevant aside and come back to the Satyr and hopefully things will make sense on my thought process to figuring out this "more than meets the eye" creature.

I hate gambling. I've been to Vegas a few times now and have never put even a single nickel in a machine. For Magic, when I look at my opening hand, It's usually pretty clear that it's bad or good. There's not a lot of grey area there for me. If it looks like I need to get lucky a bit to make the hand pay off, I'll usually just mulligan. I don't like to take the chance. I'd rather have the game be decided by tight-technical play than luck if I can help it. Basically, I just want to give myself the best chance to NOT have to rely on luck throughout a game. The same notion takes affect when I get milled. I don't like to make myself upset over something that gets milled away so sometimes I tend not to even look. However, I figured that if you get some cards milled, there's basically the same chance of drawing the card you want afterwards as there is before you get milled. Technically, you have a better chance of drawing it if it doesn't go to the yard, but the point is that it's important to understand that there's the same chance for any card in your deck to get milled as any other. It's a little bit of luck, but I try to look at it scientifically and not mess with my own mind and make myself upset the rest of the game. You can't control what goes to the yard, but if you focus on that too much, you'll forget about what you can control.

Anyway, back to the Wayfinder. The reason why it's a good card is because it can find you a land. Probably a land of the color you might be missing. Yes, it can throw away some bombs, but they're no good anyway if you don't have the land to cast them. M15 actually has a lot of cards that interact with the graveyard too so it's really pretty good. The Souls, at worst, can at least get 1 use from the graveyard. Black has cards that bring back creatures to your hand or put one into play. Green has Restock and the powerful Undergrowth Scavenger. I might not necessarily recommend playing the Wayfinder with no graveyard interaction spells, but like I said, he makes sure you hit your land drops, not to mention he's great at stopping Oreskos Swiftclaws!

Finally, another thing I picked up at the GP is that Pros can be beaten. I beat one myself! It made me realize that I have the ability to be on their level and achieve the results I want out of a major event. It all came down to attitude. I sat down across from my opponents with the expectation that I'm going to win. I made correct plays and played tight Magic. I think that you see a lot of the pros winning event after event because people sit across from them and get nervous. When you get your next sealed pool, build the best deck you can and go in with the attitude that you can beat anyone across from you. Too many times have I psyched myself out just by looking at someone, especially someone I don't know. I tell myself that my opponent "Looks like someone who will beat me". And then they do. Don't do that!

Thanks for reading guys! Good luck in Salt Lake!

DannyO
WizardDen.com

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

The Aftermath of Pro Tour Magic 2015!

Hey guys! Thanks for being patient with me as I took a break from writing articles for a bit there. This time though, there's a lot to talk about. Last week I covered the big changes to the competitive circuit due to take effect in December and the only other big change that has happened since then is that they also announced that Advance level and higher shops will be able to host a GPT for the GP of their choice once per month. This is pretty cool news since our local GPTs have often been for Grand Prix across the country. The ability to choose which GP you host a trial for means a bigger turnout on average which is always great.

Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about the Pro Tour that just took place in Portland over last weekend. I didn't watch much of the coverage, in fact hardly any at all, but looking at the top 8 deck lists sure is interesting to say the least. If you haven't researched any of the event, Ivan Floch took the trophy home with his spicy U/W control. No Elspeths... No Aetherling... Just 3 copies of Jace, Architect of Thought. If you like to durdle, this is the deck for you. With no apparent win condition until you can ultimate a Jace and steal something of theirs to kill them with, you're going to have very long games. Not really my style at all. I like to be actively trying to win the game, even when playing control. He's got a couple Archangels in the sideboard, but the games will still go pretty long after those come in. He also had a lot of wrath effects in the deck to help that stall with 4 Supreme Verdicts and 3 Planar Cleansing. Apparently slow and steady wins the race... as they say.

Ivan Floch - U/W Control

4 Sphinx's Revelation
4 Dissolve
4 Supreme Verdict
4 Azorius Charm
3 Planar Cleansing
3 Divination
4 Quicken
2 Last Breath
3 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Elixir of Immortality 
2 Syncopate

4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Temple of Enlightenment
2 Azorius Guildgate
2 Mutavault
1 Temple of Epiphany
1 Temple of Triumph
6 Island
6 Plains

Sideboard:
2 Last Breath
4 Nyx-Fleece Ram
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
1 Jace, Memory Adept
1 Deicide
2 Dispel 
2 Gainsay
2 Archangel of Thune

As great as that is for him to win the Pro Tour, the deck is pretty boring(to me). I'd rather talk about the other lists that performed well. Notably, Team Channel Fireball brought a fairly stock list of B/W midrange to the table and managed to put 2 of their players into the top 8, William "Huey" Jensen and Owen Turtenwald. Both players have fantastic professional records and are regarded as some of the best in the world so it's no surprise that they ended up here, but the deck is pretty good too. It's pretty similar to the list that I used to get the best result at a competitive event I've ever had. It uses the best removal in the format ala Thoughtseize and Hero's Downfall while running the usual must-answer threats in the form of Pack Rat, Desecration Demon, Blood Baron and Obzedat. Top it off with a couple Elspeth, and you've got a deck with so much power in it, that it's just good against any strategy there is out there. This deck isn't really anything new, but with most players being on B/g control/midrange lately, it's interesting to see that white was the splash color of choice here.

William Jensen/Owen Turtenwald - B/w Mid-range

1 Ultimate Price
2 Devour Flesh
3 Bile Blight
1 Obzedat, Ghost Council
3 Desecration Demon
4 Thoughtseize
4 Pack Rat
3 Underworld Connections
3 Lifebane Zombie
2 Banishing Light
2 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
3 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
3 Hero's Downfall

8 Swamp
1 Plains
4 Godless Shrine
4 Temple of Silence
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Mutavault
4 Caves of Koilos

Sideboard:
1 Underworld Connections
3 Duress
1 Erebos, God of the Dead
1 Sin Collector
2 Drown in Sorrow
2 Last Breath
3 Doom Blade
2 Deicide

There were also 2 Jund decks that made it into top 8. 2 very different builds in fact.Yuuki Ichikawa decided that 4 Nissa, Worldwaker was the way to go and Pierre Mondon thought that number was zero. Both decks ran a pretty basic removal suite for Jund with Abrupt Decay, Downfall, Golgari Charm, Dreadbore, Mizzium Mortars, etc. But the biggest difference was in the walkers. Pierre ran 3 of each Chandra, Xenagos, and Vraska. Yuuki was on 4 Xenagos, 4 Nissa, 2 Chandra, and 1 Vraska. I honestly think that any combination of jund walkers here will be pretty powerful and it'll most likely be affected most by how much control there is out there. Supreme Verdict just can't handle walkers, but as you saw, Ivan's 3 Planar Cleansing was an incredibly good decision.

Yuuki Ichikawa - Jund Walkers

4 Elvish Mystic
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Courser of Kruphix
4 Xenagos, the Reveler
4 Nissa, Worldwaker
2 Chandra, Pyromaster
1 Vraska the Unseen
2 Thoughtseize
3 Mizzium Mortars
2 Dreadbore
1 Golgari Charm
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Putrefy
2 Ultimate Price
1 Rakdos's Return

2 Mutavault
3 Forest
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Llanowar Wastes
4 Stomping Ground
4 Temple of Abandon
1 Blood Crypt
4 Temple of Malice

Sideboard:
2 Thoughtseize
1 Mizzium Mortars
1 Golgari Charm
1 Rakdos's Return
2 Magma Spray
4 Mistcutter Hydra
2 Doom Blade
2 Scavenging Ooze

Pierre Mondon - Jund Walkers

3 Vraska the Unseen
3 Xenagos, the Reveler
3 Chandra, Pyromaster
4 Courser of Kruphix
4 Read the Bones
2 Rakdos's Return
2 Putrefy
1 Hero's Downfall
3 Mizzium Mortars
2 Dreadbore
2 Golgari Charm
1 Abrupt Decay
4 Sylvan Caryatid
3 Elvish Mystic

2 Blood Crypt
4 Llanowar Wastes
4 Stomping Ground
3 Temple of Abandon
2 Temple of Malady
4 Temple of Malice
1 Mutavault
1 Forest
2 Overgrown Tomb

SIdeboard:
1 Rakdos's Return
1 Mizzium Mortars
1 Golgari Charm
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Slaughter Games
1 Pithing Needle
4 Magma Spray
2 Duress
2 Thoughtseize

Possibly one of my favorite archetypes to show up here, is the 2 G/W aggro decks(1 G/W/R). Both were pretty similar with only a few differences, but the best part was the Ajani, Caller of the Prides in the decks. I never actually sleeved this archetype up, but I've thought about it a lot and maybe I should now that it shows to do so well. The creatures alone are powerful and fast, causing 1-for-1 removal to be underwhelming. Ajani is the rope that ties it together though. He comes down on a tapped out opponent for a huge doublestrike attack in the air to likely steal many games. It's the biggest reason I've wanted to try this myself. For the aggro guys(and girls) out there, this is a likely a nice place to start for the rest of the large standard format.

Jackson Cunningham - G/W Aggro

8 Forest
8 Plains
4 Mana Confluence
4 Temple Garden

4 Experiment One
2 Sunblade Elf
3 Soldier of the Pantheon
3 Selesnya Charm
4 Voice of Resurgence
4 Fleecemane Lion
3 Loxodon Smiter
3 Boon Satyr
3 Ajani, Caller of the Pride
3 Banishing Light
4 Advent of the Wurm

Sideboard:
4 Setessan Tactics
4 Unflinching Courage
4 Skylasher
1 Ajani Steadfast
2 Ajani's Presence

Patrick Cox - Brave Naya

4 Soldier of the Pantheon
4 Dryad Militant
4 Voice of Resurgence
4 Fleecemane Lion
2 Precinct Captain
4 Boros Reckoner
4 Ghor-Clan Rampager
4 Brave the Elements
4 Selesnya Charm
1 Boros Charm
3 Ajani, Caller of the Pride

4 Sacred Foundry
4 Temple Garden
4 Stomping Ground
4 Temple of Plenty
4 Mana Confluence
2 Battlefield Forge

Sideboard:
3 Boros Charm 
1 Back to Nature
2 Mizzium Mortars
1 Xenagos, the Reveler
1 Ajani Steadfast
3 Setessan Tactics
2 Banisher Priest
2 Advent of the Wurm

Lastly, there was 1 deck that made top 8 and it's pretty cool because it's a deck I've been playing quite a bit in the past few months... Boros Burn! The deck is pretty stock wherever you look at it, but the sweetest addition is Stoke the Flames. I initially looked at the card and decided it didn't work in the deck, but that was because I was running 4 Chandra's Phoenix and 4 Eidolon of the Great Revel as my creatures. Matt Sperling's top 8 list ran 4 Young Pyromancer over the Eidolons(though still keeping 1 in), making Stoke the Flames ten times better. With all of the burn spells, you're likely to have 3-4 Elementals out after just a few turns and Stoke the Flames becomes a free spell pretty quick. I'll definitely have to switch up my list now and learn the new ways! It seems pretty powerful and I'm a huge advocate of this deck as it seems to have a good match-up against most archetypes.

Matt Sperling - Boros Burn

4 Shock
3 Skullcrack
4 Lightning Strike
4 Boros Charm
4 Stoke the Flames
4 Warleader's Helix
4 Young Pyromancer
1 Eidolon of the Great Revel
4 Chandra's Phoenix
4 Searing Blood

4 Mutavault
3 Sacred Foundry
9 Mountain
4 Battlefield Forge
4 Temple of Triumph

Sideboard:
1 Skullcrack
1 Eidolon of the Great Revel
1 Banishing Light
3 Chained to the Rocks
2 Glare of Heresy
4 Satyr Firedancer
2 Chandra, Pyromaster
1 Wear // Tear

All in all, that's a good bit of diversity in the top 8, which is always nice to see, and the best part of all... no Mono-Blue! Though it did show up a bit in the top 24 or so along with more of the same archetypes that showed up in the top 8 with small differences.

We're getting pretty close to spoiler season for Khans and I'm very excited to see what we get. I have a hunch that we'll be getting a lot more powerful cards in Khans than we did for Theros so hopefully standard will be full of exciting new decks and builds over the course of the Block.

Thanks for checking out my review on the Top 8 decks from the Pro Tour and I'll see you next time!

DannyO
WizardDen.com