In preparation and practice for the draft portion of the MTG Nationals this coming September 16-17, 2017, we have decided to schedule a booster for each of the vacant days this coming weekend along with the upcoming holidays. So far this week is very favorable with the local holiday

as per the Iloilo City Charter Day celebration and the National Heroes Day on Monday. The HOU-AKH Booster Draft structure will be 2 HOU and 1 AKH pack and we decided with the P500 registration fee so it would be affordable to most of the players. The prize structure is rare drafting so that the players can concentrate on the draft strategy and not on the rare drafting.

Here below are the scheduled dates:

2 pm @ Friday, August 25
1:30 pm @ Sunday, August 27
1:30 pm @ Monday, August 28

New players should prepare the basic lands and card sleeves beforehand so it would be easy for the team to start the draft and deck building right away. See you at ProRei’s place.

As the Standard metagame continues to evolve in dealing with the Red menace, a few previous archetypes also needs to adjust even if the deck popularity is low. One of which is the Black White Control deck which has been in Standard since the time of Collective Company decks. Here is one recent decklist I’ve found from Reddit:

Orzhov Control

Creatures
3 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
3 Cataclysmic Gearhulk
1 Gonti, Lord of Luxury
1 Archangel Avacyn

Planeswalkers
4 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
3 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Liliana, Death’s Majesty

Spells
4 Fatal Push
4 Grasp of Darkness
3 Blessed Alliance
3 Anguished Unmaking
3 Never//Return
1 Cast Out

Lands
8 Swamp
6 Plains
4 Shambling Vent
4 Concealed Courtyard
4 Forsaken Sanctuary

Sideboard
3 Succumb to Temptation
3 Collective Brutality
3 Yahenni’s Expertise
3 Lay Bare the Heart
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Anguished Unmaking
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet

Two HOU Gamedays were successfully held this weekend on each separate local MTG game stores here in Iloilo City. The first one at ProRei’s Place was quite high in attendance as there were 28 players that arrived and participated to battle the Standard format. After a grueling 5 rounds of Swiss and the Top 8 playoffs, it was Ramon Alivio’s Temur Energy that gained the title of Mastermind or the ol HOU Gameday Champion of the tournament. In the process, he defeated my teammate JayR who played Blue White Flash. Here below is Ramon’s obligatory champion pose after winning the Finals match.

Sunday’s Gameday venue was at Critical Hit: Comics and Games and the player attendance were on an average of only 16 people. That was one person short of having five rounds of Swiss. The metagame was somewhat the same with Ramunap Red and Zombies as the top aggro decks. After the Swiss rounds, the Top 8 were composed of Ramunap Red, Temur Energy, Mardu Vehicles, Zombies and a Mono White Eldrazi deck. My teammates Oliver and Ericson were able to qualify and Oliver was the only player in the team to make it in the finals after dispatching Zombies in the quarters and Temur in the semis. His matchup was a mirror match Ramunap Red, with Doc Earl Flores. It was an intense two-game match with both players at very low life totals and I was only able to cover live the 2nd game along with Oliver’s winning moment. You can check it at my FB profile page. A huge congratulations to Oliver Mastilero in winning the 2nd HOU Gameday in Iloilo.

With the success of Mono Red in the last Pro Tour, it is natural that the other deck archetypes will adjust their build to counter the deck. One deck though does not need major changes in the build and in fact used only two cards from the Hour of Devastation set. The deck is Blue Red Zombies and the last time I played the deck was back in Aether Revolt Standard. It is a good thing that it is back in the metagame with a recent win in the MKM Series Prague 2017. The deck was piloted by Lukas Paugsch and here below is the decklist:

22 LANDS
1 Highland Lake
5 Island
5 Mountain
3 Sanctum of Ugin
4 Spirebluff Canal
4 Wandering Fumarole

18 CREATURES
4 Advanced Stitchwing
3 Champion of Wits
4 Elder Deep-Fiend
4 Prized Amalgam
3 Stitchwing Skaab

17 INSTANTS and SORC.
4 Cathartic Reunion
4 Kozilek’s Return
3 Lightning Axe
1 Shock
4 Strategic Planning
1 Tormenting Voice

3 OTHER SPELLS
3 Fevered Visions

SIDEBOARD
1 Abrade
1 Champion of Wits
2 Chandra’s Defeat
2 Dispel
1 Fevered Visions
2 Fiery Temper
2 Jace’s Defeat
1 Negate
1 Shock
2 Thing in the Ice

Hey all, just sharing my booster league deck for Hour of Devastation season which I am supposed to about a week ago in which the league started. For your information, booster league is a format wherein you buy and open three HOU booster packs and build a 30-card deck around it. Even if you are just starting in Magic, this is an even playing field for newer players and veterans alike. This is also for those who just wanted to crack open packs as they still get to enjoy playing their opened cards.

As I have remembered, my three rares from my boosters were Mirage Mirror, Hour of Eternity and Bontu’s Reckoning. I have not listed them yet but I made sure to take a picture of each of the opened packs. I compared the colors to maximize each one of them and finished with a Black & Green build with a splash of White for Aven of Enduring Hope. Here below is a picture of the deck:

I got to try the deck last night against our other booster league participants and I went 2-1 in three matches. Do take note that every match should be recorded for submission to the DCI reporter.

Every week the players can add another booster pack to their pool, whether it is a HOU or Amonkhet booster pack. I got mine yesterday and found a Scorpion God which can prompt me to add a fourth color or just cut White to Red. We shall see.

Drop by to your nearest local game store and join the HOU Booster League.

After checking through the decklist of the Mono Red deck in Reddit, I have found a reference list for Rakdos or Black Red Aggro deck version for HOU Standard. Similarly, I saw the deck in one of the featured matches in the StarcityGames Standard Open last weekend. With the gathered setup and Red as the base color, here is the version that I wanted to test for this Friday’s FNM.

3 Ahn-Crop Crasher
3 Ammit Eternal
4 Dread Wanderer
4 Earthshaker Khenra
4 Scraphead Scrounger
2 Kari Zev, Skyship
1 Hazoret the Fervent
4 Soul-Scar Mage

3 Cartouche of Zeal
3 Cut/Ribbons
3 Key to the City
4 Unlicensed Disintegration

4 Canyon Slough
4 Foreboding Ruins
1 Smoldering Marsh
3 Ramunap Ruins
6 Mountain
4 Swamp

The access to Black opens us to two solid cards components: Scraphead Scrounger as a recurring creature and Unlicensed Disintegration as a well-refined spot removal and damage reach. Cut/Ribbons is also another damage reach option in the late game.

A few card combos in the deck are: Ammit Eternal and Key to the City, Soul-Scar Mage and Cut/Ribbons, Earthshaker Khenra and Hazoret the Fervent/Key to the City.

I will try to build the deck by Thursday so I could give it a test run by Friday’s FNM. I will post the results and matchup details hereafter.

Mono Red Aggro is back in the spotlight in this Hour of Devastation Standard format with the addition of viable components from the recent MtG set. The fast curve and hasty critters proved that the deck can take down other Tier1 archetypes. Here below is one of its recent deck list:

4 Ahn-Crop Crasher
4 Bomat Courier
4 Falkenrath Forger
4 Village Messenger
4 Earthshaker Khenra
2 Kari Zev, Skyship Raider
2 Reckless Bushwacker
2 Hazoret, the Fervent

4 Shock
4 Incendiary Flow
4 Cartouche of Zeal
1 Trial of Zeal

13 Mountain
4 Ramunap Ruins
4 Sunscorched Desert

Sideboard:
1 Mountain
1 Chandra’s Defeat
2 Magma Spray
3 Abrade
2 Akoum Firebird
3 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
1 Sand Strangler
2 Glorybringer

It is quite late to post this tournament schedule but nevertheless, I am sharing the MTG events that our local Magic Iloilo Community will be having this weekend. We start with a Friday Night Magic tonight at around 6 pm and next is tomorrow’s start of the Hour of Devastation Standard Showdown season. The rest of the tournaments are detailed below:

July 21, 2017
Friday Night Magic
Standard Constructed format, 90php entry fee.
The top 4 get an exclusive FNM Promo foil card and HOU Booster packs
Starts 6:00 pm

July 22, 2017
Standard Pauper Tournament, 60 php entry fee.
HOU Booster pack prizes
Event starts @ 11am

Saturday Standard Showdown
Standard Constructed format, 100php entry fee.
HOU Booster pack for prizes, special SS booster packs
Event starts @ 3pm

July 23, 2017
Sunday Modern Tourney
100 entry fee, Modern Masters booster pack prizes
Event starts @ 1:30pm

All of the tournament’s venue is at ProRei’s Place. See you there.

The God Pharaoh Nicol Bolas in the set Hour of Devastation has proved that he is the supreme being of the plane garnering the champion trophy in the Starcity Games Standard Open in Cincinnati. The deck is a Four-Color Control rendition with powerful spot removals like Abrade and Fumigate backed up by counterspells in Supreme Will and card draw like Glimmer of Genius. The deck was played by Michael Hamilton and he defeated the popular UW Monument deck piloted by Jonathan Rosum in the finals of the tournament. Here below are the two decklists:

4-Color Control
Creatures (2)
1 Torrential Gearhulk
1 Linvala, the Preserver

Planeswalkers (5)
2 Dovin Baan
1 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
1 Nahiri, the Harbinger
1 Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh

Spells (26)
2 Cast Out
2 Abrade
1 Blessed Alliance
2 Censor
2 Essence Scatter
4 Glimmer of Genius
2 Harnessed Lightning
2 Magma Spray
2 Negate
1 Pull from Tomorrow
3 Supreme Will
2 Fumigate
1 Radiant Flames

Lands (27)
2 Island
2 Mountain
3 Plains
4 Aether Hub
1 Fetid Pools
4 Inspiring Vantage
4 Irrigated Farmland
2 Port Town
2 Spirebluff Canal
3 Wandering Fumarole

Sideboard
3 Glorybringer
3 Spell Queller
1 Chandra’s Defeat
1 Dispel
1 Essence Scatter
1 Forsake the Worldly
1 Jace’s Defeat
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Confiscation Coup
1 Radiant Flames

U/W Monument
Creatures (24)
4 Bygone Bishop
4 Cloudblazer
4 Hanweir Militia Captain
4 Selfless Spirit
4 Spell Queller
4 Thraben Inspector

Spells (11)
2 Stasis Snare
2 Metallic Rebuke
4 Oketra’s Monument
3 Dusk

Lands (25)
4 Island
9 Plains
1 Irrigated Farmland
4 Port Town
4 Prairie Stream
3 Westvale Abbey

Sideboard
3 Angel of Sanctions
2 Nimble Obstructionist
2 Stasis Snare
3 Negate
3 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 Fragmentize

Here is a Magic set update patch for Magic Workstation on the Hour of Devastation. Fyi, Magic Workstation is a free software that is being used for playing MtG on the Internet and on the Magic-League. I have been using this mainly on building my deck brews and testing them with friends through LAN or random matchups on their MWS servers.

Here is how to add Hour of Devastation set to your Magic Workstation (MWS):

1. With the master DB opened and selected in the top portion of Library Mode (Classic), go to Tools -> Analyze/Add/Remove Sets.

2. Add New Edition, Edition Name “Hour of Devastation”, edition key “HOU”, path to spoiler = browse to the text spoiler OP posted, click Next.

3. Don’t forget to SAVE the top DB or Database to save the changes.

You can download the necessary files here. Enjoy playing HOU cards in your Magic Workstation.

I am starting this special column on discussing a certain card in a new set and its potential use and deck setup in a Standard environment. I think I have done a similar post years ago but I am not sure if I named it like this. Anyhow, I will begin with a card from the upcoming Hour of Devastation set and that is the Hour of Eternity. This card is part of the 5-color cycle in which there is an actual card with the same name as the set. The card reads:

Hour of Eternity, XXUUU
Sorcery, Rare
Exile X target creature cards from your graveyard. For each card exiled this way, create a token that’s a copy of that card, except it’s a 4/4 black Zombie.

What I see of its best use is that it will not only copy regular creatures but those with etb triggers. The appropriate cards would be the Gearhulks from Kaladesh, specifically Torrential and Noxious. There are also other good targets such as Rogue Refiner and Thought-Knot Seer.

Hour of Eternity is more of a late game card basing from its XX casting cost. You can hard cast your creatures and then later on revive them and doubling their value. The deck setup can be a Blue-Green based Ramp midrange deck which you can curve to a hard-cast Ulamog & with one or two Gearhulks. I think I have made a pre-list of that deck and will try to finish it once I’ve done browsing through the set.

Another version would be Sultai list with the new Liliana as your other reanimation option. This also opens access to the effective Noxious Gearhulk which is a good value for this. You can have cards like Grapple from the Past as a mana fixing early game and ‘Raise Dead’ in the late. Base your list from the Sultai Marvel deck that made appearance in the last Pro Tour. That is minus the Marvel of course.

I guess that is about it for now. I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas with regards to this card so just hit the comment box below.

My buddy Rey has listed one of his Standard deck ideas for the upcoming set Hour of Devastation. He made a version of Grixis control, with almost 80% of the components was from the new set and features the three new antagonist Gods.

Here below is his decklist:

Creatures (3)
1 The Scorpion God
1 The Scarab God
1 The Locust God

Instants/Sorceries (30)
2 Fatal Push
2 Abrade
3 Harnessed Lightning
2 Censor
2 Anticipate
3 Doomfall
3 Supreme Will
3 Disallow
2 Pull from Tomorrow
2 Torment of Hellfire
3 Glimmer of Genius
2 Hour of Devastation

Enchantments (1)
1 Metallurgical Summoning

Planeswalker (1)
1 Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh

Lands
26 Lands (to be detailed soon)