Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a Top 8. The 300 plus players that started out Wednesday morning have been whittled down to eight. Those players get the day off tomorrow, and will duke it out Sunday for the title. Extended was the order of the day.

Rock/Paper/Scissors

In a similar manner to Day 1’s Standard, there was a lot of buzz about which players were playing what deck. With pretty much all eyes on Japan, they show a four-color Psychatog deck that worked fairly well. There was also a zoo of Gruul decks or Boros decks or, well, Zoo decks in an attempt to counteract them. But the “super secret tech” for this year’s extended portion seems to be the combo decks. For example, take a look at this French build, which Randy Buehler tagged as “probably the best deck in the format.”

Despite the high power level of this deck, it is insanely hard to pilot effectively. Basically, the deck looks to generate a bunch of mana from the eggs and stars and spheres, which also draws you a bunch of cards, recur them all with Second Sunrise, usually off of a Lotus, then using Conjurer’s Bauble to put the Second Sunrise on the bottom, tutor it up with Mystical Teachings or Reclaims (which essentially gives you 12 Second Sunrises in the deck), and basically rinse and repeat, pinging for 2 with Pyrite Spellbomb each cycle.

It works well because you can Reshape, sacrificing Seat of the Synod for Lotus Bloom, which gets put directly into play, and then later in the turn when you get Second Sunrise (usually off that Bloom), both the land and the Bloom come back. Reshaping a Bloom for a Bloom also nets you the additional mana. All of this is legal because of the new rules concerning cards without mana costs.

The deck can potentially win on turn 3, with a more consistent kill on turn four; especially if the bloom was suspended on turn one. But even if all the combo pieces show up, doing everything correctly is still very difficult.

Pro Tip: Remember the Rock/Paper/Scissors rule of matchups. Rock = combo, Paper = control, Scissors = agro/beatdown decks. Just like in the hand-game, paper beats rock, meaning that control will generally beat combo. This is because control can usually disrupt the combo pieces enough to ensure that the combo never goes off. Scissors beats paper, meaning aggro generally has the upper hand against control. Beatdown decks have a tendency to play more threats than control has answers to. The Magic saying goes: There are only wrong answers, there are no wrong threats. Finally, rock beats scissors, meaning aggro loses to combo. This is because as fast as aggro is, good combo decks usually can win a turn or two faster. Beatdown usually doesn’t have enough disruption to mess up the combo.

As always with Magic, there is no set rule of “this automatically beats this.” All of the above depends on variables like deck construction and the player playing.

The Slow Roll

BDM’s blog holds a fairly humorous story revolving around Frank Karsten and a number of Dutch players. Most of the Dutch players were running a Boros deck featuring Sudden Shock. They had a little contest revolving around that card. It’s called a Slow Roll contest. The object is to have the winning burn spell in your hand, in this case Sudden Shock, and have the opponent within kill range, but let them play it out as if you don’t have it, then finish them off just at the last possible minute.

BDM went on to tell the story of Frank Karsten, who had his opponent set up for the slow roll, but in the end needed to cast the burn in order to get to threshold for Barbarian Ring. Because Sudden Shock can’t be responded to, but Barbarian Ring can, holding onto the shock for that long would have allowed a Shrapnel Blast (playing affinity) from his opponent to be lethal.

So the tip from this story: finish the game. If you can win, win. Doing something like a slow roll will cause two things. First, it will allow your opponent the opportunity to draw answers to your final threat (even though it is difficult to answer split second, it is doable). Because he was trying to set up the slow roll, Karsten opened himself up for a loss. Second, it will probably make your opponent think you are a jerk. Making a person go through all the motions when you could have finished it earlier is just mean. The Dutch contingent had pretty much decided that they were only going to do it to each other.

Beating the Unbeatable

Coming into Worlds, Shouta Yasooka looked to have the Player of the Year title firmly in his grasp. Currently sitting atop the standing, he essentially needed to finish in a position that only earned two points for anyone else to have a shot. Shoto is known as a constructed specialist, and with 12 of the 18 rounds of Swiss being constructed, many people figured that he was a shoe-in for the crown.

But paper is just that, there’s a reason they play the games. Yasooka went an abysmal 2-4 on Day one, leaving him with 6 points and in 295th place. Seemingly enraged by his terrible Day 1, he rattled off a 6-0 booster draft run. By the end of Day 2, he sat with 24 points and in 60th place, well within striking distance for a top 8, especially since Day 3 was another constructed format. But in an unexpected twist, Yasooka managed only one win, finishing his worlds with 27 points and a 157th place finish, which won’t earn him enough pro points to wrap up the title. Especially since both Paulo Vitor Domo da Rosa and Tiago Chan both made top 8. If Domo da Rosa or Chan win worlds, plus put up a strong showing in the team competition, either of them could swipe the title away from Yasooka.

So the tip from this is two-fold. First, anyone is beatable. Yasooka is a constructed master. Yet over the course of two different constructed formats, he went 3-9. Sure, players with reputations are usually really good. But they aren’t infallible. Similarly, Kai Budde, arguably the best ever (an argument I’ll make), finished in 175th place. He also went 9-9 on the weekend.

The second part of the tip is that just because someone is known as a specialist in one area doesn’t mean that they can’t play other areas. Again, Yasooka is known as a constructed master. Yet he pulled off an impressive 6-0 run over two booster drafts. Good Magic players are rarely only good in one discipline.

That about wraps it up for the look back at Day 3, but I’m much more excited to look forward to Days 4 and 5. This is going to be a great weekend. Up tomorrow is probably the most intense day of Magic there is: four rounds of team Rochester.

Team Rochester is arguably the most skill intensive format (again, an argument I’ll make). But tomorrow’s action goes well beyond individuals and attempts to win money. Tomorrow is all about national pride. Distinguishing your country the best in the world at Magic is a huge honor, and these guys take it very seriously.

Coming into the four rounds of play, Japan holds a slight 4 point lead over Brazil at 108 to 104. Portugal, Wales, and China are all well within striking distance at 102, 101, and 100 respectively. The United States rounds out the top 5 with 98, which is an amazing comeback after their absolutely dismal day one showing. The Netherlands and Argentina are also primed to strike at 97 and 96. It should be an extremely exciting and extremely intense day of Magical battles as only two teams will emerge to compete for the top honors on Sunday.

So until then, I hope you enjoyed the first half of Worlds, but remember, the best is yet to come.

Nate Lisko ~lionden_56~

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Delusions of Mediocrity: Getting Stuffy in Here.
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