Standard: Flinthoof Humans

Took this Naya Blitz deck with singleton sideboard to 8-0 in my last two events. Still a solid Standard archetype. pic.twitter.com/LRU85HxHzk
— Frank Karsten (@karsten_frank) June 25, 2013

Here's the list laid out in yesterday's winner's circle:

Creature curve 12-21-4-3, topping out at Frontline Medics and Ghor-Clan Rampagers. Zero removal, though the Medics and Firefist Strikers might let you "ignore" creatures you can't kill. Flinthoof Boars with only 8 mountains.

Pedro Carvalho asked about Hamlet Captain over Boar, and Karsten replied with a link to a deck by Andre Mueller.

@_megafone_ I still like Boar to grow Exp. One to 3/3. But you should check Andre Muller's PTQ T8 list: http://t.co/zZLgWGe5vl (1st post)
— Frank Karsten (@karsten_frank) June 25, 2013

4 Boros Elite, 4 Experiment One, 4 Champion of the Parish

4 Burning-Tree Emissary, 4 Mayor of Avabruck, 4 Lightning Mauler, 4 Flinthoof Boar, 3 Hamlet Captain, 1 Thalia
3 Kessig Malcontents
3 Ghor-Clan Rampager
2 Searing Spear
4 Cavern of Souls, 12 Shocklands, 4 M10 duals

That's a creature curve of 12-20-3-3, with 2 actual spells (Searing Spears) and the same 20 lands as Karsten's deck.

There is an 8-card difference between the two maindecks. Karsten has 2 extra Thalia, 2 Firefist Striker, and 4 Frontline Medic, where Mueller has 3 Hamlet Captain, 2 Searing Spear, and 3 Kessig Malcontents.

(Mueller also has an actual 4-of in his sideboard, to protect his Medic-less deck from Supreme Verdicts.)

With its superior 1-drops, Humans has sort of taken over from Saito-style Rg as the top Burning-Tree aggro deck in standard. Running Flinthoof Boar on a 3C Cavern of Souls mana base is bold tech from some very advanced players.

Video Rec: Frank Karsten stalls and waits

Starting at about 1:03:00 of this stream archive, my favourite guy Frank Karsten (with help from Marijn Lybaert) plays a really patient game, sitting mana and regenerators while saving his spells for a few turns. Of course, he eventually gets a giant advantage out of playing spells at the right time, ending with the opponent giving a funny rant about topdecks and playing a hilariously ineffective Weapon Surge.

You'll also see Karsten repeatedly alt-tabbing to the screenshot of his deck, counting the win-cards left in his library as he stalls out the board.

Karsten psychs himself up to not attack, not play anything, and not cash out Cluestone.

Karsten's stream channel also has a pretty great highlights file.

Limited: Colourful version of Frank Karsten's draft diagram

In addition to the seven guys taking red, there's an unbroken chain here of five black drafters and another chain of four green drafters. Thoralf Severin "wins" the draft by having only one colour in common with each of his neighbours.

(Original in the GP Gothenburg coverage.)

Writing: Frank Karsten is a coverage hero

A man with good ideas.

GP Gothenburg this weekend might have the best text coverage ever. I read a lot more than I expected to, and a lot more than I normally read for a limited GP in Europe. Probably some of this is from Wizards pushing to make GP coverage more readable, but a lot was because the famously brainy Frank Karsten was doing text coverage.

Some gems:

- Tobi Henke asks pros about Keyrunes versus Cluestones. It's fun writing and an interesting and relevant question.

- Karsten takes a trial-winning five-colour deck and asks pros about some sample hands. Normally I find the trial-winning decklists a bit meaningless in limited or constructed. Karsten at least used one of them as a resource to have conversations about sealed.

- Henke asks a survey question (best common in sealed). Most pros have the same boring answer (without really explaining why), but Karsten and Denniz Rachid have some compelling answers at the end.

- Henke asks a tougher survey question. "Play or draw" is super-important but doesn't often get discussed. Henke gets good answers here from top players including play-or-draw expert Florian Koch.

- Karsten covers Kenny Oberg vs. Hannes Kerem. It looks like Oberg won on a tricky combat decision, baiting out some pump spells, and Oberg is quoted explaining this well. In an average limited match. Match write-ups now focus on the games that the players found interesting, whereas they used to try and name every spell played in every game.

- Karsten's interview with the Swedish WMC team was also really cool. I don't think most people hear about the WMC qualifiers other than for their own country + the United States. A team with three pros is fun and notable, plus they gave some good answers.

- Karsten drafts with Jan van der Vegt and Mark Dictus. The draft tables are much more useful to read than the traditional paragraphs walking through draft picks (i.e., inconvenient conversion of tables into prose form).

- Karsten lists out the two-card combos in DGR that he heard about, presented in beautiful visual side-by-side. My favourite is Greenside Watcher and Verdant Haven, both commons and both probably underplayed. (Cc @travisdwoo in hopes of combo draft videos.)

- Henke interviews Jan van der Vegt and gets a clear and concise rundown of drafting strategy from someone who's clearly very good at that.

- Karsten makes a diagram of the top 8 draft to present something visually that I used to awkwardly try and figure out from Draft Viewer. I expect this kind of chart to become a regular feature of draft coverage.

Karsten and Henke should get loads of credit for doing a better job at GP text coverage than everyone else out there.

EDIT: This is also the first GP coverage to name a split card without creating a broken link.