I was able to drop by Rei’s place last Saturday after our DURP classes at UP and saw the Standard Showdown tournament in progress. It was the ending part of Round 2 I think and there were about 12 participants. Checking on the decks they are playing, I saw the usual suspects: Black-Red, Blue White Control, Blue Black. I stayed to watch the matchups for the rest of the rounds while enjoying my plate of extra hot pancit canton.

Here are the Top players after the Swiss and two unusual decks made it in rank.

1st, JD (Black-Red Aggro)
2nd, Ralph (Mono-Blue Auras)
3rd, Tonton (Mono Red Flame of Keld)
4th, Mark Lamera (Blue Black Midrange)

The Mono-Blue one-drops with Curious Obsession was possibly made to race with Control decks and it gets harder with a handful of counterspells in the sideboard. The same can be said with the Mono Red Flame of Keld deck wherein there are more hasty one mana critters and more burn spells which benefits from the third chapter of the Saga enchantment.

Guilds of Ravnica is already on the horizon of Standard so as we bid farewell to these cards from the rotating sets, we do hope that the same strategies can still be adapted with the new metagame.

Until the next post.