Weekend Review: September 13 - 14
Tags: #Community, #Legacy, #News, #OpenSeries, #Standard
posted 2014-09-15 by Nick Miller
The final Standard Open with Return to Ravnica block is in the books and when it was all over, Mono-Black Devotion, Mono-Blue Devotion, and U/W Control failed to make an appearance in the finals.
Manuel Orellana piloted a varied take on Rabble Red to the top slot at #SCGATL this past weekend, besting three Jund Planeswalkers decks in the Top 4. Of the three most dominant strategies this Standard Season, only two copies of Mono-Black Devotion made the Top 8, with another copy of Rabble Red and a Naya Aggro list filling out the top decks. No copies of Sphinx’s Revelation and Thassa, God of the Sea even made the Top 16.
Stephen Mann, who entered the weekend at 10th on the #SCGPC Leaderboard, made the semifinals with his version of Jund Planeswalkers to give him an extra 10 Open Series points. Open Series regulars Phillip Fortner and Justin Uppal also made the elimination rounds. Fortner also played Jund Planeswalkers, while Uppal utilized the power of Pack Rat and Nightveil Specter one last time.
As for the Legacy Open in Atlanta, Chi Hoi Yim took home his third trophy on the Open Series with Miracles, outlasting a Top 8 filled with combo decks. Yim defeated Feline Longmore’s High Tide build in the quarterfinals, James Hess’ Elves in the semifinals, and Brad Nelson’s Infect in the finals.
The rise of Infect was the story of the tournament as three copies made the Top 8, following Tom Ross’ back-to-back Invitational wins with the fringe combo deck. Todd Anderson joined Nelson in playing the deck for the first time and cruised into the elimination rounds. Matthew Webster also made the Top 8 and fell to Nelson in the Infect mirror in the quarterfinals. Nelson edged Anderson in the mirror in the semis before falling to Yim in a tight three-game match. Also making Top 8 were Richard Wright with Burn and Byron King with Shardless BUG.
Yim’s work on the weekend should jump him into the Top 32 on the #SCGPC leaderboard. His 22 points on the weekend go along with his two Invitational Top 8s this year. Anderson and Nelson will be right on the outside of the Top 16 as both players look to make a run at the Players’ Championship at the end of the year. Longmore will move into the high 20s on the leaderboard, also looking to earn to a shot to play Magic in Roanoke at the end of December.
Other Magic action this weekend included the Community Cup tournament and the World Magic Cup Qualifier in Philadelphia.
The Community Team, consisting of Paul Cheon, Tom Ross, Frank Lepore, Sean Plott, Erin Campbell, Bjorn Andreasson, Mariah Pagliocco, and Scott MacCallum, were victorious, defeating the Wizards Team 220-207. The Community Team closed out the competition in part to Ross, Cheon, and MacCallum going 3-0 in the Stipulation Draft portion to finish the event.
Complete coverage of the Community Cup
Neal Oliver won the WMCQ with Mono-Blue Devotion, defeating Charles Zhang and B/W Midrange in the finals. Also making the Top 8 were Brian Braun-Duin, Phil Napoli, Andrew Cuneo, and Tom Strong.
Tournaments will take a break this weekend for the Khans of Tarkir prerelease. The Open Series returns September 27-28 with a fresh Standard format in Indianapolis and Edison, NJ for the first double Open weekend.