By Niels Viaene
I decided to join the fray again for this edition and in the words of Britney: “Oops, I did it again”. Yes , I know it is cringy, and I am going to be completely honest by saying I don’t care. Nem!
All kidding aside, for the 23rd edition of the Gentry Open 16 players showed up and the deck diversity was through the roof. We saw completely new decks, new takes on old decks and new decks with old cards. This, I still believe, is one of the greatest strengths of Gentry, especiallty now, the immense diversity and possibility to brew something and take an entire event by storm!
Champion: Niels Viaene on UG Mona Lisa
First and foremost, credit where credit is due: This deck was mostly created by Nideon in the Magic Arena Gentry discord (still a great source for Gentry deckbuilding discussion).
The deck works by repeatedly buffing and untapping a Mona Lisa, netting increasing amounts of mana and hopefully dumping it all in a game ending Rare card. Ringing Strike Mastery can make you go infinite when Mona Lisa taps for 6 mana and if you can find Spectral Sailor after that, a win is assured as long as your victory conditions are not hiding in the bottom few cards.
I made minimal edits based on feeling and card availability. For example, the original Rare suit had Season of Gathering and Goldvein Hydra instead of Wan Shi Tong, Librarian and Valgavoth’s Onslaught, which both were swaps that I felt extremely happy with throughout the event as the Librarian was instrumental in continueing a struggling combo turn while serving as a great finisher thanks to the haste from the Boots. I ended up in multiple situations where Flying was more valuable than trample or inherent haste and the onslaught took some games by making 5 7/7’s or 6 8/8’s where another threat would have been annihilated.
Other than that, I chose a mana base that would give me more color flexibility and hopefully better chances agains decks that put pressure on me by playing the dual lands that enter untapped when a player is at 13 life or below.
I went 3-1-1 in the swiss rounds, losing only to the player I would meet again in the finale. The draw was intentional but turned out to be massively in my favor (I ended up playing it in the semifinal).
So, is this the best deck in Gentry? Far from, I am even convinced this is not even close to an optimal version of it. It plays insufficient lands (which I only realised after giving Casper a hard time for playing the same number of lands, sorry dude!), has an incredibly hard time setting up correctly with Sleight of Hand and Stock Up, punishes you really hard for not understanding match-ups and interactions, and is one of the hardest decks to mulligan with. After all that, your combo is usually non-deterministic, meaning even of you do everything right, you might end your big turn with 43 mana and nothing to use it on. But it is so fun to play and tinker with, seeing the fear in your opponents’ eyes as they have no idea if they are about to die when they pass priority.
Finalist: Casper Craeymeersch on UR Spellementals
Casper ported the deck he was playing in Standard to Gentry, a strategy that has delivered many a competitive deck in the past, when you then land in blue and red, you already know that you are dabbling in some very deep Gentry history, with some form of Izzet deck pretty much always being debated as a core part of the metagame. Currently, that title is held by UR Lessons, a deck that is carried by the card advantage of Accumulate Wisdom.
Casper chose to go aggro with the strategy, not playing any lands that enter the battelfield tapped and playing a deep suit of 12 beaters that get cheaper with the amount of spells in your graveyard. This deck is not for the faint of heart, it plays a lot less interaction than the others versions of UR but it packs a way heavier punch.
Semifinalist: Renzo Verkooren on BG Insidious Roots
Renzo did not have time to finish his deck, and was digging around the draft chaff to find the final cards for his mana base and sideboard. But Renzo is also the most succesful person ever to touch Gentry, being one of only 2 people to secure 3 trophies in the history of the format, and the core he brought packs a punch.
Roots used to be the backbone of a very grindy midrange deck that just kept finding more card advantage until you got buried under it. Much like Casper’s deck being an aggro version of a well known archetype, Renzo took that concept and put a turbo into it, being able to create a board of creatures threatening lethal damage on turn 5, something the older versions would never have been able to do. He still has a lot of staying power but gives up q lot of interaction with his opponents for that, which cost him dearly in his games against Mona Lisa, which is just a tad faster. The deck is really hard to interact with favorably and should be relatively kind to play so an optimised version of this list might be a great pickup for people that want to keep up with aggro while being annoying for control decks.
Semifinalist: Wiebrecht Storme on UR lessons
| Main deck (60) 13 Island 11 Mountain 4 Opt 2 Refute 4 Abandon Attachment 4 Burst Lightning 4 Firebending Lesson 4 Tolarian Terror 4 Accumulate Wisdom 3 Eddymurk Crab 3 Combustion Technique 1 Thor, God of Thunder 1 Quantum Riddler 1 Ral, Crackling Wit 1 Ran and Shaw | Sideboard (15) 3 Witness Protection 3 Negate 2 Essence scatter 2 Refute 2 Fire Magic 2 Soul-Guide Lantern 1 Eddymurk Crab |
Our last semifinalist is Wiebrecht, who has been piloting UR Lessons to great results in the past months. The deck did take quite a beating when Gran-gran got banned (and we follow the Standard bans in order not to make things too confusing) and I have the feeling that perhaps finding a new uncommon suite has proven somewhat difficult. Interstingly, we see the same choice of not playing slow dual lands that come into play tapped here hoping the card selection will smopoth out the many in other ways. I would have loved to see Sleight of Hand featured in that case, maybe even allowing to cut a land or 2, but I guess that was too much of a commitment away from lessons.
Conclusion
Gentry is very much alive, almost all other players in the event played different archetypes:
– G Fynn Poison
– G Landfall
– WG Kithkin Aggro
– UR Spellementals (the only duplicate)
– UW CMC 3- Reanimator
– WGR Push The Limit
– UR Hidetsugu’s Second Rite
– WUR Dragon Control
– UB Self-Mill
– RG Delirium Aggro
– 2 lost decklists 🙁
