Hey all, I do hope your week started right and Magical in the MTG sense and opening some good cards from your booster packs and winning your local tournaments. I am writing this blogpost as a sort of local tournament update for the Iloilo community.

For everyone’s information, the Saturday Standard event is already in full motion as the regulars are in full attendance every week. I was a witness last Saturday as we were fourteen players in total for the tournament and it was started in the right schedule. Our card pool was able to build a competitive Standard deck to start our weekly grind and so I was the first to pilot it. I finished with a 2-2 record. So that is about it, Saturday Standard is a weekly regular tournament for MTG Iloilo.

The next tournament that we hope to finally push through is the Friday Night Magic with Pioneer as the format. It was in the talks months ago with our local TO and the regular players have agreed to build their decks henceforth. Rei Coo has even ordered some Pioneer Challenger decks to cater to those players who have no initial card pool to begin their deck builds. Considering that most of the players still have the cards for the MTG sets years back, it will just be a little adjustment for the list given that the same strategy from the set’s Standard days is also reflected in Pioneer. The Mono Red Aggro deck for example.

I talked with Rei last weekend and he is planning to have the first Pioneer FNM tournament this coming Friday. I will post an update once it is a go. That is about it for now, until the next blog post.

It is a good initiative by our local game store Pro Rei’s Place to hold a Magic Arena tournament for the Iloilo players in a way to continue the local Magic: the Gathering scene despite the current pandemic being experienced by everyone.

Currently, on its 2nd week or event, the organized gameplay with the use of streaming and chat technologies such as Discord, OBS studio and Twitch has somewhat advanced our setup in the digital setting rather than just streaming the games of major tournaments such as the Red Bull Untapped Qualifiers and Players Championship.

I’ve talked with Rei and he said that he aimed this to be a weekly regular event with a month ender special event wherein the Top 8 players from the local ranking points are to be qualified. With lots of special prizes including physical booster packs in the recent sets, the players will aim to increase their weekly points to be able to get in the Top 8 rank.

Currently, the weekly Saturday Arena tournament will have a P150 registration fee and with the Core Set M21 Promo Packs and regular booster packs for the top finishers. It ain’t that big at the moment but then reaching the monthly goal will be good news. Also, I have volunteered to giveaway a playmat last week for the 1st place player, Mark Tubola, playing Sultai Control. This time, I might have one Magic: the Gathering product for the end of the month tournament special.

That is a wrap for now. I will have another blog post for the tournament results on this 2nd week. It is streamed on Eric’s Twitch account, Air Vengeance.

I would like to give a big thanks to the Magic: the Gathering Iloilo players for a successful tournament last night at Nth Dimension: Comics and Games. Even with the post-Christmas day celebration, sixteen players still gathered to play Standard. My Teammate Ace initiated the late announcement even though there was no formal post made at the Facebook page of MTG Iloilo and of Nth Dimension. Good thing the players were eagerly to play even with the short notice. Good job Ace and also congrats for another top finish.

Here below is a post of the tournament results of the Wednesday Night Magic event held last night at Nth Dimension. This was posted at the MTG Iloilo Community page.

I was able to check with the Standard format again by joining the Wednesday Night Magic at Nth Dimension: Comics and Games. My Teammate Ace gladly bought the decks again because Tom and Val were there also to participate. I have decided to play Mono Red again and to test Ace’s recent list. There were ten players in attendance at the venue and we decided to start at around 6:30pm as Oliver still did not arrived.  Here is a recap of my matchups:

Round 1 vs Ruel playing Golgari Midrange – Won 2-1

Round 2 vs PR playing Boros Aggro – Won 2-0

Round 3 vs Ace playing Jeskai Control – Ace gave me the win 2-0

Round 4 vs Tom, another teammate playing Boros Angels – he also gave the win to secure the first place slot prizes.

There are no significant play matchups but I was glad I was able to pull off the Game 3 win vs Golgari with the right top cards via Experimental Frenzy. The timely Fight with Fire combined with the damage from the Goblin Chainwhirler was able to deal with the six-toughness walker.

A similar scenario also happened with the Game 1 matchup versus PR’s Boros Aggro. I got my two Lava Coils stuck in my hand due to the Frenzy but the crucial turn that my last attack, I should get enough damage to take down his 9 life points. With the three Steam-kin, I was able to destroy the enchantment and pump out mana for the Laval Coil to get rid of his Phoenix. With only Aurelia as the lone blocker, I attacked with the steam-kins along with the two Ghitu Lavarunners. He blocked the biggest Steam-kin and took the rest of the damage with a total of 11 points.

Overall, the local metagame didn’t changed much as most people stick with their archetypes and will just probably wait for the cards from Ravnica Allegiance for the possible changes. We will just prepare for the upcoming Unified Standard event at Pro Reis place which we still have to finalize on what dates most of the players will be available.

That is a wrap. Until the next post.

The recently concluded Pro Tour Guilds of Ravnica showed the White Red Aggro dominance in the Top 8 and the Pro Tour metagame. With the championship title achieved, we would expect people to play more of this deck archetype in the coming weeks. The local metagame is not exempt from this one. But first, let us see what the people have been playing as per the recent tournament.Here below is my observation of the deck archetypes that these players piloted during the Standard tournament last Saturday.

Total: 18 players

I can say that most of these players will just stick to their deck builds unless they are in a card pool where they can switch with their teammates’ decks. I can also say that they will refer to the Top Standard decks in the Pro Tour for specific decklist changes. Surely the Boros Aggro count will increase on this week’s local tournaments, but I think most of the players will be ready for them. The deck has a huge target mark on its back at the moment, and if no changes are implemented to mitigate the expected hate, it will surely be at the bottom of the barrel by the end of the Swiss rounds.

I will try to observe the next FNM for the possible little changes in the metagame. As for now, I am hoping to complete our Team’s Boros deck before Friday.

Until the next blog post.

I finally was able to join a Standard Friday Night Magic at Pro Rei’s Place last Friday. There were not that many readings to do that week so I was able to put our Prerealease loots and preordered cards to good use by building the Team’s first Standard deck post-rotation. The deck was Selesnya Aggro and we based the list from the long line of 5-0 decks from the recent MTGO Tournament results. The deck can curve out from Llanowar Elves into Thorn Lieutenant and can ramp up to the Conclave Cavalier and Lyra Dawnbringer. Here below is the decklist:

Maindeck
Creatures
4 Conclave Cavalier
3 Emmara, Soul of the Accord
3 Llanowar Elves
3 Lyra Dawnbringer
3 Resplendent Angel
4 Thorn Lieutenant
4 Venerated Loxodon

Spell
4 Conclave Tribunal
4 Flower // Flourish
4 History of Benalia
1 Seal Away
1 Settle the Wreckage

Land
6 Forest
8 Plains
4 Sunpetal Grove
4 Temple Garden

Sideboard
2 Dawn of Hope
2 Ixalan’s Binding
2 Karn, Scion of Urza
2 Knight of Autumn
2 Seal Away
1 Settle the Wreckage
2 Vine Mare
2 Vivien Reid

After office that Friday I immediately went to Raoul’s place to sort and build the deck. What I preordered were mostly for this deck archetype so we only had a little issue on which card components were missing. We then sorted out the list by its card type and found out that we already completed the main deck. That was also the same case with the sideboard. I then sleeved the cards, grabbed an empty deck box for the container and headed to Pro Rei’s place. It was almost 6pm and there were a lot of players in the venue registering for FNM and some discussing the new cards from Guilds of Ravnica.

I made sure the sideboard is complete and after a few minutes, the FNM Round 1 started. Here is the summary of the matchups.

Rd 1 vs Mark T (Esper Control) – Won 2-0
Rd 2 vs Tonton (B/W Angel Knights) – Lost 1-2
Rd 3 vs Golgari Undergrowth Player – Won 2-0
Rd 4 vs Nonoy Sia (Jeskai Control) – Won 2-1

The deck finished in third place with a 3-1 record and got rewarded with an FNM foil promo card and one Guilds of Ravnica booster pack, despite all of the play mistakes I made. I am pretty rusty considering that I played a new Standard deck even reading all of the cards beforehand. I seemed to forgot the interactions such as the one with the Resplendent Angel with a +1/+1 counter wherein I forgot to play Lyra before attacking, which should be a pretty good board swing advantage as I get to gain 5 lives and one 4/4 Angel token. Anyhow I will redeem myself on with that by doing playtest sessions with the teammates starting this week.

Overall I am still impressed with the deck’s power to overcome other aggro decks backed with a good sideboard plan. While the Mono Red matchup is still the one to consider, we would expect a lot of them in the local metagame because of its consistency and the good matchup with control decks. I cannot gauge it for now without the actual playtest but surely we will know it pretty soon enough.

Here are the Top 8 Decklists right after the Swiss Rounds of the recently concluded Core Set 2019 Store Championships at ProReis Place held last Saturday, September 15, 2018. This was forwarded by Rei via email just earlier this evening.

Top 8 Decklists after the Swiss rounds:

Luigi – Blue Flyers

Main:
23 Island

4 Unsummon
4 Lookout’s Dispersal
1 Chart a Course
4 Favorable Winds
3 Curious Obsession

4 Siren Stormtamer
4 Warkite Marauder
3 Stormfleet Aerialist
4 Tempest Djinn
2 Dreamcaller Siren
4 Nimble Obstructionist

Side:
4 Deep Freeze
2 Blink of an Eye
1 Syncopate
3 Negate
2 Essence Scatter
1 Dreamcaller Siren
2 Glyph Keeper

*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Speedy – Black Red Midrange

Main:

4 Canyon Slough
4 Dragonskull Summit
2 Aether Hub
1 Swamp
14 Mountain

2 Heart of Kiran
2 Cut//Ribbons
3 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
3 Abrade
2 Unlicensed Disintegration

4 Bomat Courier
4 Scrapheap Scrounger
2 Kari Zev, Skyship Raider
4 Goblin Chainwhirler
2 Pia Nalaar
2 Hazoret, the Fervent
3 Rekindling Phoenix
2 Glorybringer

Side:

4 Duress
3 Doomfall
2 Sorcerous Spyglass
3 Chandra’s Defeat
1 Glorybringer
2 Magma Spray

*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Ace “The Snake” – Black Red Midrange

Main:

4 Dragonskull Summit
4 Canyon Slough
4 Cinder Barrens
2 Mountain
11 Swamp

4 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
3 Abrade
2 Cut//Ribbons
2 Unlicensed Disintegration
2 Heart of Kiran
2 Vraska’s Contempt
2 Magma Spray

4 Goblin Chainwhirler
4 Scrapheap Scrounger
2 Pia Nalaar
3 Soul-Scar Mage
3 Rekindling Phoenix
2 Glorybringer

Side:

3 Chandra’s Defeat
1 Vraska’s Contempt
1 The Eldest Reborn
2 Doomfall
4 Duress
1 Angrath, the Flame Chained
1 Arguel’s Blood Fast
1 Abrade
1 Cut//Ribbons

*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Mark T – Black Red Midrange

Main:

4 Canyon Slough
4 Dragonskull Summit
4 Cinder Barrens
2 Aether Hub
2 Swamp
10 Mountain

3 Abrade
3 Magma Spray
4 Vraska’s Contempt
3 Heart of Kiran
3 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
2 Karn, Scion of Urza

4 Scrapheap Scrounger
4 Goblin Chainwhirler
2 Pia Nalaar
4 Rekindling Phoenix
2 Glorybringer

Side:

1 Abrade
1 Karn, Scion of Urza
2 Cut//Ribbons
3 Chandra’s Defeat
1 Doomfall
1 The Eldest Reborn
2 Arguel’s Blood Fast
4 Duress

*-*-*-*-*-*-*

JD – Black Red Midrange

Main:

4 Canyon Slough
4 Dragonskull Summit
2 Cinder Barrens
1 Swamp
14 Mountain

2 Heart of Kiran
3 Abrade
2 Unlicensed Disintegration
2 Cut//Ribbons
3 Chandra, Torch of Defiance

4 Bomat Courier
4 Scrapheap Scrounger
4 Goblin Chainwhirler
3 Glorybringer
1 Hazoret, the Fervent
2 Pia Nalaar
4 Rekindling Phoenix

Side:

1 Arguel’s Blood Fast
3 Chandra’s Defeat
2 Hour of Glory
2 Magma Spray

3 Doomfall
4 Duress

*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Raoul – Blue White Control

Main:

1 Arch of Orazca
2 Field of Ruin
4 Glacial Fortress
2 Ipnu Rivulet
4 Irrigated Farmland
2 Memorial to Genius
5 Island
7 Plains

2 Approach of the Second Sun
1 Blink of an Eye
1 Commit//Memory
4 Disallow
2 Essence Scatter
1 Fumigate
2 Glimmer of Genius
1 Negate
3 Settle the Wreckage
1 Syncopate
1 Cleansing Nova
3 Cast Out
4 Seal Away
2 Search for Azcanta
4 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria

1 Torrential Gearhulk

Side:

2 Angel of Sanctions
1 Nezahal, Primal Tide
1 Forsake the Worldly
1 Invoke the Divine
1 Jace’s Defeat
2 Lyra Dawnbringer
2 Negate
1 Cleansing Nova
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 Torrential Gearhulk
2 Walking Ballista

*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Erl – Mono Black Control

Main:

1 Field of Ruin
4 Cabal Stronghold
1 Memorial to Folly
19 Swamp

4 Torment of Hailfire
2 Treasure Map
2 Arguel’s Blood Fast
2 Vraska’s Contempt
2 Duress
1 Fungal Infection
2 Karn, Scion of Urza
2 Doomfall
1 Never//Return
1 The Eldest Reborn

2 Walking Ballista
4 Ravenous Chupacabra
4 Dread Shade
2 Kitesail Freebooter
1 Demonlord Belzenlok
3 Josu Vess, Lich Knight

Side:

3 Gifted Aetherborn
2 Damping Sphere
2 Liliana’s Defeat
2 Fungal Infection
2 Moment of Craving
2 Lost Legacy
2 Dispossess

*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Tonton – Blue Tempo

Main:

21 Island

2 Dive Down
3 Essence Scatter
2 Spell Pierce
1 Unsummon
4 Wizard’s Retort
3 Chart a Course
4 Curious Obsession

2 Baral, Chief of Compliance
4 Merfolk Trickster
2 Nimble Obstructionist
4 Siren Stormtamer
4 Slitherblade
4 Tempest Djinn

Side:

4 Diamond Mare
1 Essence Scatter
1 Jace’s Defeat
3 Negate
3 Syncopate
2 Sleep
1 Aether Harvester

Dominaria Standard was very much welcomed in the Magic: the Gathering Iloilo City Community. That was reflected in the recent local tournaments, in particular, the Saturday Standard Showdown event. Last Saturday’s attendance listed 22 players which were quite a high count for a Saturday event in months. I’d recall the last 20+ attendees were on the RIX Store Championships. Anyhow, the Top 4 players after 5 Swiss rounds were:

1st, Ralph Flores (UW Approach control)
2nd, Nonoy Sia (Rw Aggro)
3rd, Speedy Diesto (RB Vehicles)
4th, Tonton Co (BW Historic)

This Saturday, I am hoping it will be the same number if not nearing the twenty player count. Blue White Control and Red Black Vehicles would still be the dominating decks in the metagame and that would be expected on these afternoon’s tournament matchups.

The schedule of Saturday Showdown tournament at Rei’s place will be at around 3:00 pm with an entrance fee of 100php and so I’m hoping to drop by there to play. Here is the post at the MTG Iloilo Community page of last Saturday’s event:

Running into the mid of May, this weekend’s tournament lineup for MTG Iloilo community will be Standard and DOM booster draft. The usual FNM will push through at Pro Rei’s place along with the Saturday Standard Showdown. Booster packs will be at stake along with the Standard Showdown packs which can have potential foil goodies for the top finishers. Also, Dominaria Magic League has started so make sure you drop by Rei’s in case you haven’t built your League deck yet.

Since it will be another long weekend due to the scheduled Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections, we have decided to have a Dominaria booster draft on Sunday, May 13, and Monday, May 14. The venue will be at Critical Hit at Atria and the reg. fee will be 550php. Mythic & Rare prizes will be drafted and picked according to rank after three rounds. For the participants, please make sure to bring sleeves and basic lands.

Here below are the schedule for the MtG tournaments this week.

MtG Iloilo Tournament Schedule this Week

ProRei’s Place:

May 11, 2018
Friday Night Magic
Standard format, 90php reg. fee.
Top 4 gets an exclusive FNM Promo foil card
DOM Packs prizes
Starts 6:00pm

May 12, 2018
Saturday Standard Showdown
Standard, 90php reg. fee.
Showdown packs along with DOM Packs as prizes
Starts 2:30pm

Critical Hit:

May 13 and 14, 2018
Dominaria Booster Draft
550php reg.
Starts 1:00pm

I have observed the recent lack of participants in the recent Standard tournaments at Pro Rei’s place. This was also obvious during the Rivals of Ixalan Store Champs wherein the player count was only at 16 at Pro Rei and about 9 players at Critical Hit. That is despite the recent archetypes that were introduced in the format. The schedule conflict might be the main reason but I think it is more than that.

People are tired of Standard. That I think maybe is caused by the stagnant dominant Tier 1 decks i.e. Energy, Blue Black control and Mono-Red. The metagame still continues to revolve around these three deck archetypes and that related builds are also defined. For instance, Black Red Aggro is much like Mono Red in terms of strategy, though it has more advantage in creature removal I.e. Unlicensed DIsintegration and discard spells like Duress. It solves most of its bad matchups and so it was the recent deck choice of most Pros in the recent Standard Grand Prix.

Anyhow, for a preferred choice of a competitive player, they would still stick with the TIer 1 deck and just make little adjustments on the sideboard. That will then cause most mirror matches in the local tournaments which will then rely on who got the better luck and play skills. I find that boring and uninteresting.

The coming of Dominaria will introduce new cards and possible new archetypes in the format, but I think the dominance of the previous sets will be challenged a bit. Instead, they might get even more powerful with new possible interactions with their current strategy. We will know in the coming weeks.

For now, I would suggest you play other formats or dedust that kitchen table brew of yours and gather your friends for a game night of Pizza, Beer and Magic. You can also drop by the local game store for the Dominaria Prerelease this weekend.

It will be another full schedule for the weekend here in the Magic: the Gathering Iloilo community as there will be three events scheduled, including an Open House for the new and interested players. The detailed MTG tournament schedule after the cut.

***MtG Iloilo Tournaments Schedule this Week***

April 13, 2018
Friday Night Magic
Standard Constructed format, 90php entry fee.
Top 4 gets an exclusive FNM Promo foil card (Opt) and RIX boosters
Tourney starts 6:00pm, ProRei’s Place

April 14, 2018
Dominaria Open House and Standard Tournament
Entry for Standard: 100php
Event starts 2:30pm at ProRei’s Place

April 15, 2018
Sunday Modern Tourney
100php entry fee
Full art Llanowar Elves for 1st & Booster pack prizes for the top finishers
Tourney starts 3:00pm, ProRei’s Place

Iloilo’s renowned Dinagyang festival will be this coming weekend and that may affect the regular schedule of the weekly MTG tournaments. That is because of a few road closures and rerouting, given that our main local gamestore, ProRei’s place

, is located in the city proper near Robinsons Iloilo. As of this posting, Friday’s FNM may or may not push through, but players may attempt to drop by and play despite the traffic. Saturday Standard I think will be canceled. For Critical Hit, the Modern FNM will likely go as scheduled.

The tournament details are mentioned below:

January 26, 2018
Friday Night Magic
Standard Constructed
P90, 6pm at Pro Rei’s Place
Rivals of Ixalan booster pack prizes

Modern Constructed
P100, 6:30 pm at Critical Hit: Comics and Games
Rivals of Ixalan booster pack prizes