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Hi all. It has been a while since the last post with discussions in it. As you may have noticed, we have installed new template. A big thanks to Mao for that one. Also, the weekly tournaments has been added an additional schedule every Sundays which started last October 31, 2010. The venue is at JAQs bar at Smallville complex and starts every Sunday afternoon at 3pm. That’s three days of mana-tapping pleasure for you guys.

Going back, this post is a summary discussion of the three tournaments held last weekend (Nov. 12 to 14, 2010). To recall, here are the winners and the decks they’ve piloted.

Date: 11-12-2010
Format: Standard FNM
No. of players: 15
1st Occeña, Gian Carlo (Valakut Ramp)
2nd Faytaren, Pete (RDW)
3rd Minerva, Raymund (UW Relic Quest)
4th Deanon, Cheljohn (BG Midrange)

Date: 11-13-2010
Format: Standard FNM
No. of players: 21
1st Rivera, Rigs (RDW)
2nd Yap, Peter Franz (UW Control)
3rd Chua, John Paul (WW Relic Quest)
4th Faytaren, Pete (UG Aggro)
5th Gonzalez, Marco (RUG Control)
6th Alloso, Mark Ian (Kuldotha Red)
7th Sales, Mark (Elves)
8th Luzuriaga, Jimmy John (WW Relic Quest)

Date: 11-14-2010
Format: Standard FNM
No. of players: 10
1st Mastilero, Oliver (UB Control)
2nd Yap, Peter Franz (UW Control)
3rd Faytaren, Pete (RDW)
4th Carmelita, Mark Ken (BR Aggro)

As for the results, it seems that RDW (Red Deck Wins) is a strong contender in the local meta. Maybe because of the decline of red-hate (Kor Firewalkers & lifegain) and the rise in popularity of new control archetypes UB Control and RUG. Valakut is a good choice against control though except for UB as it hurts them alot, pregame and postgame. Maindecked Duress disrupts their ramp spells and Memoricide on the board gets rid of their trump card, Primeval Titan.

Another archetype I’ve noticed which became popular here in Iloilo is the mono-white Relic Quest. Here’s a core decklist:

4 Kor Duelist
4 Glint Hawk
4 Memnite
4 Kor Skyfisher
4 Kor Outfitter
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Ornithopther
4 Squadron Hawk

4 Quest for the Holy Relic
1 Sword of Body and Mind
1 Trusty Machete
2 Argentum Armor

20 Plains

The deck’s gameplan is pretty simple. Turn 1 Quest, play enough critters to reach 5 counters and then fetch for an Argentum Armor, equip and bash away your opponent. Zero casting Memnites and Ornithopthers make sure you get to 5 counters asap, with the help of Glint Hawk and Kor Skyfisher. This is somewhat an all-in deck with little options in case you don’t have the quest at turn one. You can go though with the slow version by fetching equips via Stoneforge Mystic and equip them for free with your Kor Outfitter. All I can say is that Lady Luck must be by your side at all times when you pilot this deck.

I’ve also spotted a few Infect decks, an archetype introduced by Scars of Mirrodin. Here’s one which I remembered was piloted by Herman Alca. It is the Blue Green version:

10 Forest
2 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Soaring Seacliff
4 Verdant Catacombs

4 Blight Mamba
4 Ichorclaw Myr
4 Necropede
3 Putrefax

3 Distortion Strike
2 Giant Growth
3 Groundswell
4 Mana Leak
4 Vines of Vastwood

3 Livewire Lash
2 Gigantiform

Win by Poison seems to be a funny way of defeating your opponents. Green pump spells make sure you achieve that goal and the deck can kill as early as turn three. That’s pretty scary. An interesting addition is the Blue instant Distortion Strike and the land Soaring Seacliff which make sure your Infect critters won’t be blocked.

Highlights? Oh yes, I forgot about that one. I’ve witnessed a few interesting plays though the one that left a spot was the effectiveness of the Jinxed Idol. Yep, that tiny artifact seems to be wreaking havoc against control. It seems to be a good sideboard choice since control would be putting in more creature kills which lessens the chances your creatures will survive the battlefield. You might as well just sacrifice them to the idol. Lol.

I guess this concludes my report for the week. It is about 12am as of the writing of this post and I still got some things to finish. *Heh* Anyhow, let us see if the meta will shift if there are new deck innovations that will surface. As for me, I’ll be trying my own experiment and see if it will be effective in the meta or not.

See you this FNM and thanks for reading.

1. 

   Mao

   November 19, 2010 at 7:57 am

   Swabe nga report…

   I myself was a victim of the idol and quest decks! Boo!
2. 

   Mastikor

   November 22, 2010 at 6:41 pm

   nice… nice… nice…
   mayu kay may reference na ang metagame sa ilo
   “gj” mak hehehe