Standard: GP Miami Grinder Scoreboard

Tallying up the undefeated grinder lists:
  5 Reanimator (2 Four-Colour, 2 Junk, 1 Human)
  3 Big Naya
  2 Jund
  1 UWR Resto
  1 UW Resto
  1 BWr Aristocrats
  1 Jund Aggro

- Benjamin Battle's UW Flash ran a Runechanter's Pike for 12 creatures + 2 Moorland Haunts. He only had 2 Supreme Verdict in the deck, with another 2 Supreme Verdict and 2 Terminus in the sideboard.

- Trevor Holmes' Naya had 4 Farseek and 3 Domri Rade co-existing in the maindeck somehow, with a creature curve of 4-4-4-9-3-2.

- Michael Brady's Jund had 2 Zhur-Taa Druid. Robert Pompa's Jund had 2 Thundermaw Hellkite and 1 Staff of Nin.

- Joey Dial's Jund Aggro is the 4 Spike Jester deck that's shown up online. It has a creature curve 8-18-0-8, with 6 burn spells and 20 land, and the obligatory 4 Domri Rade in the sideboard.

Fun: Simon Goertzen introduces himself

A minute or two into this Turbofog(!) video:

"For those that don't know what I'm doing, I'm Simon Goertzen, I won a Pro Tour once."

Goertzen has a terrific haircut here, and he prints his name across the bottom in a font straight from the MS Wordart Truck:

Running his two names together leaves a particular Magic-stream slur between the "si" and the "ertzen."

EDIT: Goertzen chooses to draw first in game 2, which is a pretty cool play with TurboFog.

"I'm playing this because it's April Fools."

He also hits these three cards with Jace, Architect of Thought, when he -2's to dig for a land:

Standard: Xathrid Necromancer Aristocrats for future standard

From the M14 spoiler, Xathrid Necromancer seems like a really good constructed card.

Rotlung Reanimator was amazing in standard about ten years ago -- just for fun, here's a Zombie deck that won French Nationals in 2003:

Now, here is a deck played by megafone and ar7ic that can put many Humans into the graveyard and can also make good use of Zombie tokens:

Human Aristocrats
4 Champion of the Parish, 4 Doomed Traveler
4 Cartel Aristocrat, 4 Knight of Infamy, 2 Skirsdag High Priest
3 Silverblade Paladin, 2 Lingering Souls
4 Falkenrath Aristocrat
2 Zealous Conscripts
5 removal
2 varying slots
24 lands (including 4 Cavern of Souls)

This deck uses Champion of the Parish and Cavern of Souls for synergy with the "Human" creature type on stuff like Doomed Traveler and Cartel Aristocrat. It goes light on normal "token combo stuff" (with 0 Blood Artist, 0 Sorin, and only 2 Lingering Souls), instead playing "pump creatures" (Knight of Infamy and Silverblade Paladin) to attack with a giant Champion of the Parish or a giant flying Vampire.

Xathrid Necromancer fits this deck's strength -- it is a Human; it cashes in on Humans; and it makes lots of tokens. Here's a sketch of an all-in Aristocrats combo deck for summer standard, using the same WBr Humans mana-base:

Future Human Aristocrats
4 Champion of the Parish, 4 Doomed Traveler
4 Cartel Aristocrat, 4 Blood Artist, 2 Gather the Townsfolk, 3 Skirsdag High Priest
4 Xathrid Necromancer, 4 Lingering Souls
4 Falkenrath Aristocrat, 2 Sorin
3 removal
24 lands

This weakens the mana-fixing power of Cavern of Souls a lot, so it might be optimal with something like 12 shocklands, 4 Clifftop Retreat, 4 Isolated Chapel, and 4 Plains. I've called Blood Artist weak, but sacrificing creatures will be much more affordable when Xathrid Necromancer is legal.

Here is a fun turn-4 goldfish:

T1 Champion of the Parish.
T2 Gather the Townsfolk, attack for 3.
T3 Xathrid Necromancer, attack for 4 with Champion.
T4 Blood Artist, Cartel Aristocrat.

Attack for 5 with Champion of the Parish. Sacrifice 4 Humans to drain 4 life and make 4 Zombies. Sacrifice 4 Zombies to drain the last 4 life.

Wackier options include Intangible Virtue, Bloodthrone Vampire, Disciple of Bolas, and Maw of Obzedat. Brian Braun-Duin sketched a WB Humans deck with Mutavault and suggested the glorious option of Increasing Devotion. A more sensible option might be to play a 4c Human Aristocrats deck with Avacyn's Pilgrim and Mayor of Avabruck, using the Necromancer just for value instead of for combo potential.

Standard: Online Scoreboard, June 21-27

(Decklists grabbed from the righthand column of MtgOnline.com.)

Here's a table of all the 4-0 decks (DE) or 6-win decks (PE) from June 21 to 27:

Deck	Count	Players
Junk Rites	10	JFumerton79, Exokell, L1X0, YS, CharLy, 88trample, Enrico, MagicPlayerDudeBro, SethDrone, L1X0
Saito Rg	9	tayman227, vsk, hot milk, Azazel314, syrup16g, TheNoodle812, Devil, megafone, vsk
Jund	7	Boin, dailyllama, juppal, nitechill, bluedragon123, Chlywly1, ProtossX
UWR Resto	7	BigAnnie, Bluecry, Zorrrba, MituliakV, Cryptic, Cryptic, Mingpac
Naya Humans	4	ThomasH, the adult swim, frankkarsten, Diem4x
UWR Slow	4	Crossfire42, bratschnik, Born2Win, Carl
Big Naya	3	Blinky010, AKMiD, BytorAndTheSnowdog
Bant Control	3	trunks132, reiderrabbit, Trailerpark
BWr Aristocrats	2	i b TRUE, xLeitix
Naya Blitz	2	Silver Death, HaM 187
Junk Aristocrats	2	MagicLair, enzoreal
UWB Alchemy Rites	2	pelli, pelli
Bant Auras	2	Lister1991, RReigle82
Jund Creatures	2	Xeroo, battleofjace
Red	1	trog3r
4C Alchemy Rites	1	zhuhao
4C Faithless Rites	1	usokui3
GW Tokens	1	armel
Surgeon Generals	1	Scream
Jund Blitz	1	AmericanO
Farseek Naya	1	duparcqG
GB Mutilate	1	Ofelia
Prime Speaker Bant	1	XxForgexX
BWr Human Aristocrats	1	ar7ic
4C Human Aristocrats	1	Vicalis
URw Nivix Cyclops	1	le fondue

The three players in bold (YS, ThomasH, i b TRUE) won PEs with their decks.

The four players in italics (L1X0, vsk, Cryptic, pelli) are the players who appeared twice.

This table counts 71 decks that 4-0'ed (or similar), and it gives roughly the same archetype breakdown as the MtgGoldfish stats that include 3-1 decks:

Combining some different decks into rough categories, we can make this pie chart of what standard decks are doing well on Magic Online:

Compared to the scoreboard I made in early June:
- Aristocrats decks and Big Naya decks are performing worse now.
- Fast Red decks (now with Madcap Skills!) and Fast Naya decks are performing better now.
- Junk Rites and UWR are still the best (though the UWR lists have changed a lot).

Nice Play: Michael Hetrick versus Centaur Healer

From M2G2 of this Domri Naya event, Michael Hetrick has to pick a turn three play against a Prime Speaker Bant deck:

I wouldn't mind playing Reckoner, but I still think I would rather have Domri in this situation.... Actually, that's not 100% true. If I Domri +1, we're getting a long game advantage, but he already has the advantage in the long game.

We could Mortars his guy and play Experiment One and attack for three. That also prevents him from Resto-ing the Healer.... Yeah, I guess that's true. Then we could play around the Resto next turn with Rampager.

If we just Domri'ed, we'd be playing a control role, which I don't think we should really be doing. Yeah, we're not gonna do that.

There is a slight downside [to Mortars + Experiment One]. We could save [Mortars] -- but I don't think it's that significant, especially since pretty soon we're gonna have Domri and our Reckoner, which can suffice as removal.

Hetrick should be relieved that it was a Healer instead of a brick-wall Loxodon Smiter, but I like his decision to play Mortars and Experiment One, and I like the logic behind it.

(He's also completely bottle-necked at three mana, so playing Domri to find extra creatures probably won't
do much to win him the game.)

The one other thing I'd consider is just attacking first to see if the opponent cares about Flinthoof Boar. We could do Rampager + Experiment One on a block (since that signals no Restoration Angel) or just deal 3 and cast Reckoner otherwise.

Video: Highlights from Sam Pardee playing Junk Aristocrats

(Working through a backlog of CFB videos.)

Here are some highlights from this recorded 8-man of Sam Pardee playing Junk Aristocrats.

M1G1 -- Sideboarding vs. Naya Aggro

To make room for more removal and Unflinching Courage, Pardee takes out all the Blood Artist and all the Sorin from his deck.

I like Abrupt Decay. I typically like cutting Blood Artist, because -- Blood Artist is really good when we're trading resources, which is what we want to be doing in this matchup, but it doesn't actually make us any ... It makes trading resources better for us, but it doesn't help us successfully trade resources, if that makes sense.

Cartel Aristocrat helps us successfully trade resources -- we're trading a Spirit token to give it protection to hopefully trade for one of his guys. So that's a trade we're willing to do. Blood Artist makes that trade more profitable for us, but we don't need those trades to be more profitable; we just need them to be happening. So I like shaving Blood Artist out.

I think Unflinching Courage is good. I think Sorin's also not very good in this matchup, because he's very slow, especially on the draw. I like Garruk because he can kill -- if they have Fiend Hunter, if they have Avacyn's Pilgrim -- there's just a lot of little guys he can kill.

This seems like a great plan for on the draw versus Naya aggro -- if you make the entire deck about 1-for-1 trades, something like Lingering Souls ends up taking over.

Blood Artist is sort of a combo card in a deck that often wants to scrape card advantage instead of making a combo kill. Making a lot of creatures and pumping them with Sorin and Gavony Township is the "real plan," and Blood Artist just speeds up the kill by one turn when that plan is working. It creates the illusion of a lower creature curve (since it's technically a 2-drop), but I wonder if Selesnya Charm or something would just be more effective.

M2G1 -- Picking a turn two creature

So here's the tricky spot -- whether you play Aristocat or Voice. If they have access to Pillar of Flame (I guess he could still be Jund), it's typically better to play the Aristocrat first, because you don't want to get your Voice killed, so that's why I'm doing that here. The other, secondary, reason is that they're going to hit for the same amount this turn, so it doesn't really matter.

[The opponent plays another GB land and passes.] I guess if I'd played Voice, he would have had to main-phase his [spell] -- I'm guessing he's going to cast a Grisly Salvage here.

This was just a sensible play and good reasoning. Aristocrat before Voice to guarantee you'll get the Elemental.

M3G1 -- What to do with Sorin

The two Searing Spears in the graveyard are, of course, for the Voice of Resurgence in graveyard and the Elemental it made. Pardee untaps and plays Sorin on turn 4 here:

I'm just going to play it and plus it. He could kill it, potentially, with a Warleader's Helix, in which case I'd rather have minus'ed it, but it's not that likely that he has it -- they usually only run 1 or 2 Helixes -- and even in that case, I think I'll be in good shape.

Basically I think it's much more likely that he has something like a Snapcaster for his Searing Spear to kill Sorin, but maybe that just doesn't matter that much and I should just do it anyway. No, I'm gonna plus. I can always minus next turn, unless he has the Warleader's Helix, which I don't think he does. I don't think he would have snap-killed that Voice token if he had a Warleader's Helix.

He goes back and forth on this one before deciding to +1 and make a token. I think the decision is very clear -- even with a power boost, his small army will not be much pressure for a UWR deck with 17 life and 5 cards. Generating a second army of Vampires should be done as quickly as possible.

The +1 is better against the Snapcaster turn that he sniffs out, but it's also better against most other possibilities: Supreme Verdict, Restoration Angel, or just Azorius Charm.

Other notes
- Pardee says that the deck's biggest problem is mana-flood. He plays 22 mana lands + 3 Gavony Township
- He boards out the Skirsdag High Priests against UW decks -- the logic being that sacrificing a Doomed Traveler to trigger Morbid is walking into Supreme Verdict.

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.