By Niels Viaene
Before we get started with the update, an apology is in order. In last week’s update, we forgot to add points for Peter Jönsson. To aggravate things, that would have put him in the lead this week. Sorry Peter!
30 Players joined the 6th event, 2 of them new players, 1 of them was dice2k6, who has not registered as a player, but that is fine as well. Everybody is welcome. This event took place just two days before the changes to standard are happening, so Companions are still available at the beginning of the game, no paying three mana to get them from your sideboard. Two companion decks took the undefeated slots, but they might not look like you would expect.
4-0 dice2k6
Lurrus Mono White Aggro
| Companion (1) 1 Lurrus of the Dream Den Deck (60) 4 Alseid of Life’s Bounty 19 Plains 4 Healer’s Hawk 4 Gods Willing 4 Karametra’s Blessing 1 Castle Ardenvale 4 Glaring Aegis 4 All That Glitters 4 Sentinel’s Eyes 4 Sentinel’s Mark 4 Solid Footing 4 Gingerbrute | Sideboard (1) 1 Lurrus of the Dream Den |
To say dice has struggled to get a legal deck would be an understatement. He had become pretty near to a meme in the community for being in the event without a Gentry legal deck. This week was different as he signed up with a deck that was almost Gentry Legal. God’s Willing shows up as an Ultimate Masters common, and so he played 16 uncommons while he thought he had 12.
He is also missing a sideboard and still went undefeated with this version of mono white bogles. This deck is very much a part of the metagame that we saw on the rise last week, ditching the card advantage engines they had for more stability and a far scarier All that Glitters than any deck we have seen up to now.
4-0 Thijs Weytens
Kaheera Boros Aggro
If dice is the lost son that finally found a deck, then Thijs is the longtime village mentor that constantly finds new ways to build decks in Gentry. He turned to cats as his creature type of choice for Keheera after writing an article about Kaheera Gruul Elementals and went undefeated with the most classic of aggro decks you can imagine.
And no, he did not “dodge the hate”, he played against 4 Flame Sweep in round 1 and 3 Cry of the Carnarium in round 2 so by all accounts, this deck has proven its worth!
3-1 Joris Misotten
Golgari adventures
Joris managed to go 3-1 with a deck everyone has been trying to build since Throne of Eldraine came out, Adventures. Apparently, the key to success is to load up on both Edgewall Innkeeper and Lucky Clover and go HAM! Even Curious Pair gets a slot in the main deck.
This deck has no Companion and looks to have a decent game against control, hiding away cards on adventures, waiting for the Innkeeper to show up.
3-1 Quinten Cauwelier
Lurrus Boros Cycling
Quinten showed that even the nerfed version of the deck still has what it takes to take high slots in Gentry. He replaced his Zenith Flares with Savai Thundermane and went to town, raking up 3 wins in 4 rounds. The deck is still scarily stable, it just needs to work a bit harder and longer for the win now it can’t bank on getting double Zenith Flare to steal the kill. That extra time might be a blessing after the companion changes, though, as they will more likely find themselves in a situation where they have time to get their Lurrus operational.
3-1 Simon Declerck
Simic Aggro Mutate
Everyone had Umori, the Collector as an obvious inclusion in early versions of this deck. As time progresses, the more successful people are seen dropping the companion for Planeswalker support. It still features the nonbo of Hydroid Krasis and Auspicious Starrix, but the upside on both those cards is apparently more than enough to punch through regardless.
Dropping Umori also alows you to do more with your sideboard as there are no hard feelings in when it is good enough to cut your companion. This deck could replace Simic Flash as the Blue-green deck.
3-1 Robbe Schildemans
Umori Grixis Control
Yes, you are seeing that correctly, this deck plays Umori to make instants cheaper and plays ONLY INSTANTS! That is insane! Robbe struggled last week with the deck, but went to the drawing board and came back with something definitely spicy. Whether this deck will survive past Companion change remains to be seen as I have no idea how it plays out.
Conclusion
This marks the event that saw dice finally play in it, we went back to 30 players, and Peter Jönsson is the first two-time leader. We are also seeing the top players solidify now that they are crossing the 5 event threshold.
From now on the leaderboard shows both total points and qualifying points, total being the combined points of every events and the qualifying points (QF) being the top 5 events they have played. All these points scale off the size of the event, so people that want to be able to score more points can help achieving that by bringing more people in.
Since QF’s will determine the final byes, it is possible to take top slot all the way into the end of the season. You have a fighting chance to get there as long as you play at least 5 events before the Online Gentry Open that will take place in september.
On a metagame watch angle, we see the single worst event for conrtol decks this entire season. Only 1 player, Sander De Quick managed to do better than 2-2, with control as a group (Azorius, Dimir, and Izzet) stranding on a 44% win rate in this event! Out of these, Izzet was the worst performing one, not even making it over 33%! Is this the exception that confirms the rule or the beginning of a metagame shift?
At this point, they are still the most popular deck choice by far, with 13 out of 30 players choosing to sleeve up counter, draw and removal spells, but that might change for the next edition…
May your brews be taking the meta from its blind spot,
Niels Viaene
