By Niels Viaene
The second entry of the current split was another one where Tom showed the 6 other players that an aggressive game plan is definitely still viable in Gentry, especially when the control players start gunning for eachother rather than non-control decks.
4-0 Tom De Wael
Mono-White Bogles
The Bogles archetype aims to make a single extremely hard-hitting threat and protect for the couple of turns it needs to finish the game. Tom went all-in on this theme rather than trying to diversify where he puts his threats by playing the full set of both Selfless Savior AND Alseid of Life’s Bounty. The big threat is All that Glitters onto an evasive one drop. Gingerbrute has been the best combo for that purpose, adding to the artifact count in addition to having a very rare evasive ability.
The Companion is there to try and go for a second round, though with how this deck is build, that will not come into play often. Just having a single extra card and threatening that rebuild will often be anough to put opponents in a really bad position.
3-1 Cyril Germain
Grixis Control
Cyril took second place with his, at this point, stock Grixis list. What is notable is that Cyril is not often seen playing Gentry and still managed to go deep in the event with a deck that kind of requires you to know what is going on. The open decklist nature of the online events allow this to be possible.
This deck is still the measuring stick of the format, with possible answers to anything you can throw at it. The comnbination of counterspells and relatively “free” exiling rather than putting things in the graveyard has kept many other archetypes under control. Tom showed that being extremely linear is a good strategy against these kinda of decks, as they need to have so many different answers available it becomes easy fighting back against the few that threaten you.
3-1 Teddie Andersson
Dimir Control
Some Control players, like Teddie here, opt to go for a strategy without red and one that does not rely on creatures for the finishing blow. This invalidates a lot of interaction players have in their decks, especially in game 1. On top of that, you get a more stable mana base than the Grixis builds. Currently, the archetype is performing slightly worse than the Grixis builds and Izzet builds, but that is only a slight metagame shift away from turning upside down. What shift would that be? Well, the one where aggressive decks start becoming a target again, and the mismatch in creature interaction becomes a bigger advantage for these creatureless Dimir decks.
The Metagame
The rest of the 3-1 Club was my Mono-Red Sactifice, Jelle’s Rakdos Sacrifice, and Thijs’ Grixis control. Control as a whole returned to the metagame with a vengeance, putting in 8 players out of 17, but barely managed to have a positive win rate. The metagame seems quite open again, even with Green based value decks that have done pretty well in the past not showing up this week.
The leaderboard
Tom did really well in the last 2 events, going 3-1 and 4-0, both with well designed aggressive decks. His suitor, Jelle, has been championing Rakdos Sacrifice for a while now, agains showing you do not need to play blue based control to come up on top. That said, the next 4 people on the list have secured their place mostly by playing various control decks. Let’s see how that develops after the next Tuesday Weekly Gentry event.
See you soon!
Niels
