![]() Sam beat Martin Dang with Atarka Red, Yuuya Watanabe with Jeskai, Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa with Esper Dragons, and Owen Turtenwald with Abzan Control. Well, clearly this means that we should all play Mono-White Devotion, right? The two decks that failed to find a single victory were two of Seth’s teammates, Ari Lax and Steve Rubin, with Abzan Control. The three undefeated decks were Sam Black with Mono-White Devotion, Seth Manfield with Abzan Control, and Magnus Lantto with Atarka Red. One of the first things we can look at is match counts. Still, we only have to work with the data we have rather than the data we want – despite the fact that that data is cloudy, murky, or muddy. ![]() Unlike the data mining I did for Magic Origins and other Pro Tours, there is only half as many rounds of data to work with, and far fewer players to boot, so things end up muddier. ![]() Unraveling this isn’t really particularly possible, in the purest sense of the word. It is worth noting that this isn’t just a multiple-format event like a Pro Tour, this is a format where there are four formats. Of course, the most popular deck may have been Jeskai and the deck Seth Manfield had in his hands may have been Abzan Control, but how did all of these decks perform overall? To witness the homogeneity, check out the field:Ĭall me crazy, but to me this feels like it would have been an incredible format to have played U/B Control in!* I know, I know – it’s easy enough to call it my pet deck, and to say of course I’d think that, but to me this looks like it would probably be great for the deck, with the important question of, “How many copies of Stratus Dancer are running around in Jeskai?” At this level, there is a lot to be said about choosing a safe list rather than trying to ‘break it’ especially given just how many formats there are and how few rounds you actually play in any particular format. These players are among the top in the game, a collection of Pro Tour Champions and the year’s top performers. ![]() With nearly everyone working in a least pairs of mini-teams, this would mean that you could expect very little ‘oddball’ deck choices from anyone, and you could likely expect that you’d see very little in the way of innovation as well. With only 24 players working on metagames becomes particularly odd, as the field is going to homogenize quite a bit. The event is quite a bizarre one in many ways. In our team’s playtesting for Pro Tour Khans of Tarkir, Seth was the one who figured out how to win Ari Lax’s quarterfinal matchup, and I definitely was happy to see his diligence and hard work pay off at PAX in Seattle. He’s quietly been doing great at the Pro Tour this last year, and until now hasn’t gotten nearly the credit he deserved. For my part, watching the coverage from the sidelines at home in Madison, it was heartening to have fellow Madisonian Samuel Black come back to make the Top Four, and I was definitely very excited to see Seth Manfield’s victory. Worlds is over and done and now, while we begin the ramp up to Battle for Zendikar, there are still plenty of events to be had in Standard before things rotate.
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