Decks of the Week Jan. 28
by Bill Stark | posted at 2010-01-28 01:11:00
tagged: MTG, Magic, Magic the Gathering, Extended, Pro Tour Qualifier, PTQ, San Juan, DailyMTG
UPDATE: Read Jonathan Medina's tournament report using his Polymorph deck here. (Thanks to Evan Erwin on Twitter for the tip.)
Fresh off the Decks of the Week presses, here's what's hot (and rogue) in the Extended PTQs:
Ken Adams
1st Place - Kentucky - Lexington - 1/23
4 Arid Mesa
2 Cascade Bluffs
1 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Hallowed Fountain
3 Island
2 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep
2 Steam Vents
3 Countryside Crusher
4 Greater Gargadon
3 Mogg War Marshal
1 Sower of Temptation
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Ajani Vengeant
4 Ancestral Vision
2 Chrome Mox
2 Cryptic Command
2 Lightning Bolt
3 Lightning Helix
2 Path to Exile
3 Remand
3 Spell Snare
2 Threads of Disloyalty
Sideboard:
3 Aven Mindcensor
2 Damping Matrix
3 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Flashfreeze
2 Pithing Needle
2 Threads of Disloyalty
Ken Adams is on a whole nother level. It's hard to describe his deck or what it's trying to do, but whatever it is, it worked. He managed to take the top slot in Kentucky. Sometimes you just Greater Gargadon your way to victory. In Extended.
(Ken, if you're reading, feel free to sound off in the forums with more details, or hit me up on email. Both links are at the bottom of the article.)
Jonathan Medina
5th Place - Kentucky - Lexington - 1/23
1 Academy Ruins
3 Hallowed Fountain
1 Marsh Flats
2 Mutavault
3 Scalding Tarn
3 Seat of the Synod
4 Snow-Covered Island
3 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Tolaria West
1 Watery Grave
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
4 Ancestral Vision
3 Chrome Mox
3 Engineered Explosives
3 Mana Leak
3 Muddle the Mixture
4 Path to Exile
2 Polymorph
4 Spell Snare
3 Sword of the Meek
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Thopter Foundry
Sideboard:
2 Celestial Purge
1 Echoing Truth
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Negate
1 Polymorph
3 Shadow of Doubt
1 Threads of Disloyalty
3 Wrath of God
Also rogueing it up in Kentucky was Jonathan Medina. He was playing a semi-stock Thopter list save for one detail: Polymorph + Iona. The combo allows him to blow up one of his Thopter tokens to turn it in to Iona. In a pinch, he could always cast the thing, or even turn the sorcery on his opponent's Baneslayer Angel to trade it for Wild Nacatl (or another Baneslayer). Perhaps not a rogue deck, but certainly a rogue addition.
Shane Downey
1st Place - Arizona - Phoenix - 1/23
1 Forest
1 Gemstone Caverns
2 Marsh Flats
3 Mutavault
1 Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
2 Overgrown Tomb
3 Swamp
3 Treetop Village
3 Twilight Mire
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Bloodghast
4 Dark Confidant
3 Eternal Witness
4 Kitchen Finks
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Disfigure
2 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Putrefy
4 Smallpox
4 Thoughtseize
3 Umezawa's Jitte
Sideboard:
4 Deathmark
2 Duress
4 Extirpate
3 Krosan Grip
2 Shadow of Doubt
Shane Downey got there with Pox Rock, a newcomer to the scene. The deck had an additional Top 8 last weekend. It's a pretty standard Rock build with the powerful addition of Smallpox. Bloodghast and Dark Confidant are also pretty good, but I'm not sure the deck would have a favorable matchup against Dark Depths or Thopter Foundry, both of which are the control decks the toughest competitive players love to play in Extended.
There you have it! Check the link below for the full Decks of the Week breakdown.
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/activity/374

Subscribe via RSS


Bill Stark is the founder and editor-in-chief of TheStarkingtonPost.com. He began playing Magic in 1995 after being introduced to the game by his brother. Since then he has competed at all levels of play including the JSS, Grand Prix, Nationals, and Pro Tour. In addition to his career as a pro, Bill began writing about the game early on for TheDojo.com, the first website dedicated to Magic. Since then he has written and edited for nearly every major Magic website on the web. In 2007 he began work as an official coverage reporter for Wizards of the Coast, flying to Grand Prixs, Nationals, and World Championships to record the events happening at each. He was also hired for six months as an R&D intern at Wizards where he worked on the redesign for DailyMTG.com as well as helping to develop multiple Magic sets. After leaving Wizards, he started TheStarkingtonPost.com to utilize his many contacts in the industry to provide a better information solution for fans of TCGs, gaming, and Magic: The Gathering.