Ben Friedman's BW Midrange without Blood Baron of Vizkopa in the 75... What the hell? Can anyone explain me such a strange choice?
Well, when you expect a lot of Jund Monsters, Mono Blue, RW Burn and other decks that the card is bad to just a minor annoyance.
I'm cheering for Ben Friedman in the finals. Although I love to see red decks succeed, Ben said that if he wins, he will donate all of the money to Mariah Pagliocco's medical expenses. Mariah is the daughter of a WOTC employee, and she was recently struck by a car and has suffered catastrophic injuries.
1st grabs 10k. 2nd grabs 8k. Pretty good either way.
Tom Ross has a sweet legacy infect deck and I'm curious to see if Monored grabs both tourneys.
Love Tom Ross and super happy for him to win the invitational but mono red....mono...red...with only 2 mutavaults between both lists...winning both the open and the invitational ONLY because no other decks are actually built to handle super aggresive builds...but great meta call I guess.
If anyone wants a cheap deck to play that has to be it for Standard. The most expensive card is Eidolon of the Great Revel as a 2 of in the sideboard for $5
Tom Ross wins the Invitational! I'm curious as to what token he will choose.
I was happy with the two finalists and it was tough to root against either one for any reason. I really like what Tom Ross is doing, keeping formats from getting stagnant. I personally hate both archetypes that he plays, but just absolutely LOVE watching him play them. I don't know why this is.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
The meta will not warp around this at all… Adjustments will be made, but lets be real about what this means. You have to run extremely hot to pull that off with 17 lands.
The meta will not warp around this at all… Adjustments will be made, but lets be real about what this means. You have to run extremely hot to pull that off with 17 lands.
I've been playing Boss Sligh with +1 land, I think Tom is wrong to not run it. That said you can run on two land and Dragon Mantle smooths your draws so much. If you're on a 1 lander and have 2 draws to find the second (on the draw or Dragon Mantle on the play) you're usually going to get there. That said Dragon Mantle and Blinding Flare make hitting your land drops a good thing so running a few more in place of some other cards isn't a bad thing.
The Invitational is also a different meta from typical Standard. It's no secret that PTs are usually thicker with control and midrange decks, and sometimes fast aggro is going to attack from an angle many players may not be expecting to be highly relevant.
Congrats to Tom Ross for taking down the event with one of the single most definitive archetypes in Magic's history.
Tom Ross wins the Invitational! I'm curious as to what token he will choose.
I was happy with the two finalists and it was tough to root against either one for any reason. I really like what Tom Ross is doing, keeping formats from getting stagnant. I personally hate both archetypes that he plays, but just absolutely LOVE watching him play them. I don't know why this is.
Last time he was in the top 8 he said he'd have an infect token.. but it might be the red solider token (from akroan crusader) when he won with the standard deck this time.
Tom Ross didn't win the Invitational because of "Expert Meta Call". Let's be serious, he has ran both Boss Sligh and Infect since at least december of last year if not longer. He won this invitational for the same reason Joe Larson has the highest winning percentage for SCG: Legacy Opens and CVM closed out Season 2 - they have great knowledge about their decks. They know not just how their decks tick but how they breathe, they know their chances of certain cards and how to tweak accordingly. His win wasn't like Brad Nelson's 2 invites ago with a great player with a good meta deck, Tom's was built from the ground up with perfectly knowledge on how his decks operate. He won it by being the best player at this tournament. Please do not take away his win by saying his deck was a meta call, because it wasn't. It was dedication to a deck to show that he is a fantastic player who played a good deck.
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"The trick to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources..." Albert Einstein
Tom Ross didn't win the Invitational because of "Expert Meta Call". Let's be serious, he has ran both Boss Sligh and Infect since at least december of last year if not longer. He won this invitational for the same reason Joe Larson has the highest winning percentage for SCG: Legacy Opens and CVM closed out Season 2 - they have great knowledge about their decks. They know not just how their decks tick but how they breathe, they know their chances of certain cards and how to tweak accordingly. His win wasn't like Brad Nelson's 2 invites ago with a great player with a good meta deck, Tom's was built from the ground up with perfectly knowledge on how his decks operate. He won it by being the best player at this tournament. Please do not take away his win by saying his deck was a meta call, because it wasn't. It was dedication to a deck to show that he is a fantastic player who played a good deck.
"Meta call" is the wrong way to put it, since he didn't just pick up the deck a week ago, and he is indeed a fantastic player. But it certainly didn't hurt that the three most popular decks (MBD and variants, Jund Monsters, and U/W/x Control) are all too slow to keep up with Sligh. Those T8 matches were steamrollings.
Tom Ross didn't win the Invitational because of "Expert Meta Call". Let's be serious, he has ran both Boss Sligh and Infect since at least december of last year if not longer. He won this invitational for the same reason Joe Larson has the highest winning percentage for SCG: Legacy Opens and CVM closed out Season 2 - they have great knowledge about their decks. They know not just how their decks tick but how they breathe, they know their chances of certain cards and how to tweak accordingly. His win wasn't like Brad Nelson's 2 invites ago with a great player with a good meta deck, Tom's was built from the ground up with perfectly knowledge on how his decks operate. He won it by being the best player at this tournament. Please do not take away his win by saying his deck was a meta call, because it wasn't. It was dedication to a deck to show that he is a fantastic player who played a good deck.
Why can't it be both? He has a lot of experience with the deck and it was well suited for the metagame that he himself described. I mean did you even read his article, he called the deck a metagame call himself. Stop arguing with him.
Tom Ross didn't win the Invitational because of "Expert Meta Call". Let's be serious, he has ran both Boss Sligh and Infect since at least december of last year if not longer. He won this invitational for the same reason Joe Larson has the highest winning percentage for SCG: Legacy Opens and CVM closed out Season 2 - they have great knowledge about their decks. They know not just how their decks tick but how they breathe, they know their chances of certain cards and how to tweak accordingly. His win wasn't like Brad Nelson's 2 invites ago with a great player with a good meta deck, Tom's was built from the ground up with perfectly knowledge on how his decks operate. He won it by being the best player at this tournament. Please do not take away his win by saying his deck was a meta call, because it wasn't. It was dedication to a deck to show that he is a fantastic player who played a good deck.
Why can't it be both? He has a lot of experience with the deck and it was well suited for the metagame that he himself described. I mean did you even read his article, he called the deck a metagame call himself. Stop arguing with him.
If you are constantly championing a deck and you happen to eventually play enough that the meta cycles into a period where your deck just so happens to be good... I would hardly call it a "Meta call".
That is like saying playing Texas Hold 'Em with 2 7 in the pocket enough times and eventually winning, is a good call - when it just isn't.
His latest article was not "Hey. Boss Sligh is a meta call." It was "did you know that my deck matches well against the best deck and awesome against the enemy of the best deck. Here's why." The meta game is close to the same as the last invitational and the difference is his persistence to fine tune the deck.
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Pretty sure he spotlighted 5 decks, and this isn't even the one that was voted the most popular. You don't take rogue decks to a $50,000 tournament because you have a little experience with it(and I don't see in the article where he said he was playtesting this relentlessly), you take them because you think you'll slam the metagame hard. Most people will never see an invitational, you don't take a $25 deck to a $50,000 tournament only because you played it a lot.
Lets be realistic it's extremely lucky he didn't get mana screwed in any critical games given his low land count.
Take nothing away from his victory but that is not the best deck nor is he the best player.
land count is all relative. 17 is not low for his deck, it seems just right. Playing the deck myself for the last couple months you have to mull a few times bet 17 is still the correct number.
What's his highest CMC, 3? And that is out of the SB? 17 Sure does sound low. [Sarcasm] It's not like any other decks that have taken down a SCG Open run 17 or 18 lands with the highest CMC being 3. [/Sarcasm]
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"The trick to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources..." Albert Einstein
He's a great player and pilots fast, aggressive decks better than anyone else right now. The deck that he was piloting had great matchups against all other "top decks" and I'm pretty sure he built up to specifically take down the often played midrange and control decks. He piloted it masterfully against very strong players and steam rolled his way through the top eight.
Pretty sweet that his entire deck costs less than $50 and one sideboard card is almost half the cost
It's a good deck, I've had my most success this standard season playing it and variants of it (usually G/R). Decks in the Theros block meta just aren't equipped to handle hyper aggression. Shocks coming in tapped, scry lands, and decks that don't really do anything until turn 3 (Courser, Downfall, etc) just can't keep up with a deck that has a large amount of evasion and super cheap fast guys.
As far as the land count goes, I play 18 myself but anything you're losing in mana inconsistency by playing 17 is more than made up for by the fact that you're playing all basics with no color screw.
Lets be realistic it's extremely lucky he didn't get mana screwed in any critical games given his low land count.
Take nothing away from his victory but that is not the best deck nor is he the best player.
Also, not to take away from his well earned success or anything like that, but it was also lucky that he didn't face any decks that has Master of Waves. That card is usually game for mono-red.
I know mono-U was more prevalent last weekend than it has been in awhile, but it's still nowhere as popular as any of the big 4. The chances of facing it were probably pretty low.
1st grabs 10k. 2nd grabs 8k. Pretty good either way.
Tom Ross has a sweet legacy infect deck and I'm curious to see if Monored grabs both tourneys.
If anyone wants a cheap deck to play that has to be it for Standard. The most expensive card is Eidolon of the Great Revel as a 2 of in the sideboard for $5
Cash? Credit? Gold? or Jace?
I was happy with the two finalists and it was tough to root against either one for any reason. I really like what Tom Ross is doing, keeping formats from getting stagnant. I personally hate both archetypes that he plays, but just absolutely LOVE watching him play them. I don't know why this is.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Standard
W.I.P.
EDH
WNorn Tokens
I've been playing Boss Sligh with +1 land, I think Tom is wrong to not run it. That said you can run on two land and Dragon Mantle smooths your draws so much. If you're on a 1 lander and have 2 draws to find the second (on the draw or Dragon Mantle on the play) you're usually going to get there. That said Dragon Mantle and Blinding Flare make hitting your land drops a good thing so running a few more in place of some other cards isn't a bad thing.
Congrats to Tom Ross for taking down the event with one of the single most definitive archetypes in Magic's history.
Last time he was in the top 8 he said he'd have an infect token.. but it might be the red solider token (from akroan crusader) when he won with the standard deck this time.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
"Meta call" is the wrong way to put it, since he didn't just pick up the deck a week ago, and he is indeed a fantastic player. But it certainly didn't hurt that the three most popular decks (MBD and variants, Jund Monsters, and U/W/x Control) are all too slow to keep up with Sligh. Those T8 matches were steamrollings.
Why can't it be both? He has a lot of experience with the deck and it was well suited for the metagame that he himself described. I mean did you even read his article, he called the deck a metagame call himself. Stop arguing with him.
If you are constantly championing a deck and you happen to eventually play enough that the meta cycles into a period where your deck just so happens to be good... I would hardly call it a "Meta call".
That is like saying playing Texas Hold 'Em with 2 7 in the pocket enough times and eventually winning, is a good call - when it just isn't.
Take nothing away from his victory but that is not the best deck nor is he the best player.
land count is all relative. 17 is not low for his deck, it seems just right. Playing the deck myself for the last couple months you have to mull a few times bet 17 is still the correct number.
Pretty sweet that his entire deck costs less than $50 and one sideboard card is almost half the cost
As far as the land count goes, I play 18 myself but anything you're losing in mana inconsistency by playing 17 is more than made up for by the fact that you're playing all basics with no color screw.
Also, not to take away from his well earned success or anything like that, but it was also lucky that he didn't face any decks that has Master of Waves. That card is usually game for mono-red.
Her Shop on Etsy
THS-KTK: Rabble Red
RTR-THS: Dega Midrange
INN-RTR: Boros Humans
SOM-INN: B/u Control
Modern: Mono-Black Infect