Weekend review March 22-23
Tags: #Legacy, #Limited, #News, #Standard
posted 2014-03-25 by Nick Miller
Two Grand Prix on different continents both paired two high-profile players in the finals as Kyle Boggemes and Aniol Alcaraz came away with championship trophies.
Boggemes defeated former Player of the Year Brad Nelson in an Esper Control mirror match in the finals of Grand Prix Cincinnati. Bogemmes, a perpetual self-named runner-up, returned to tournament Magic in a big way after taking a significant break from competitive action. Nelson, who seems to make every Standard Grand Prix Top 8 he attends these days, defeated Pro Tour Born of the Gods 9th-place finisher Jared Boettcher in the semifinals before falling in a relatively quick Esper mirror in the finals.
Full coverage of GP Cincinnati
Top 8 decklists from GP Cincinnati
Aniol Alcaraz, previous two-time GP Top 8er, bested Pro Tour Theros champion Jeremy Dezani in the finals of Grand Prix Vienna with a stacked W/u heroic deck after the Top 8 draft. Alcaraz used a U/G deck featuring Courser of Kruphix to go 8-1 on Day 1 then reached Top 8 after drafting Boros and R/u on Day 2. Robert Jurcovic, Denniz Rachid, and Alexey Antonenko also reached the elimination rounds Sunday.
Top 8 decklists from GP Vienna
Another Esper Control mirror match resulted in Jason Janasiewicz winning the Standard Open at #SCGLA as the Open Series made its second stop in a row on the West Coast. Janasiewicz had to defeat Vidianto Wijaya in the semifinals and Ricky Sidher in the finals to claim the trophy on Saturday.
While the Standard metagame didn’t look much different than the previous week in Seattle, the Legacy Top 8 was about as diverse as possible. Phimus Pan won the whole thing with a BUG list full with Planeswalkers and no copies of Delver of Secrets. The Top 8 included No. 1 seed Yurien Seyssel playing Belcher, No. 3 John Kassari piloting Mono-Green 12-Post, No. 6 Michael Boland running Manaless Dredge, and No. 8 Jonathon Job playing U/G Food Chain. Pan defeated Jacob Kory and his U/R Delver deck in the finals.
Full coverage of SCG Los Angeles