Friday, 10 November 2017

Pro Tour Ixalan


The exploration for the golden city filled with riches beyond adventurers wildest dreams, enough to drive a person mad. No I’m not talking about Orazca, I’m talking about Albuquerque, New Mexico that last weekend played host to Pro Tour Ixalan!



Ixalan has played a part in the standard metagame for around a month now which meant that Pro Tour Ixalan was in a slightly more advantageous position than most other Pro Tours; either taking place right at the end of a set’s standard life span meaning you know exactly what’s going to show up, all the tricks and how to beat it or right at the beginning which would mean the metagame hasn’t found its legs yet and there would be a lot of home brews showing up.

The Friday dawned and with it the pro’s descended on Albuquerque geared up to kick off PT Ixalan with three rounds of draft. With the four tribes populating Ixalan I’m sure you’ve all got your favoured ways to go and what cards to pick to get the most out of your draft; some of you might prefer certain tribes or colour combinations that give you access to particularly powerful cards over synergies, personally I lean towards  Black/White Vampires in limited because I think it gives a lot of powerful cards and powerful synergies, the best of both worlds.

Out of 455 attendees only 57 made it out of the first draft with a perfect 3-0 record, including the number one and two in the World right now Reid Duke and Paulo Vitor Damo Da Rosa along with the returning Luis Scott-Vargas after his commentary stint.

As far as what the players drafted, a lot of that would have been down to signals mid draft or some teams may have even figured out their chances of getting a certain tribe or colour combo and planned around that. There would definitely be ideas on what cards would draw you certain ways, like Mavren Fein or Shapers Of Nature for example. Although the second one is multicoloured and in any other draft format it would be hard to justify shifting colours half way through your draft, with a limited meta like the one Ixalan provides though it’s definitely worth it. If there are signals that a tribe is open then you have the potential to pick up a lot of synergistic and power cards that other players have deemed not worth it as they’ve made there way around the table.

The top three colour pairs that were prioritized at PT Ixalan for the 3-0’s were:

Blue/Green - 13 players going 3-0 running this colour combination with 3 of them choosing to splash red.

White/Black - 13 players went 3-0 opting for this pair with 2 of them being lucky enough to pick up a Hostage Taker to utilise a blue splash.

Blue/Black - 10 players managed a 3-0 record going this route with a good mix of utility creatures, removal and combat tricks.

So after the first draft 57 players went into the standard portion with and undefeated record, so what would standard have in store for us. New tech to beat the top tier decks?
A new archetype that would reinvent standard?

As you may have already guessed the standard portion consisted of a lot of Temur Energy, almost a quarter of the field with an impressive 23.6% on day one while in a close second place we’re Ramunap Red, the other obvious choice for standard, and Four Colour Energy both coming in with just over 19%.
There was a little drop off after the top three decks with Sultai Energy holding the fourth most played with around 5% and Mardu Vehicles and Black/Red Aggro taking up 4.4% of the field each while Blue/Black Control, thought to be a big player against Temur a few weeks ago, had a lowly 3.5% of the field.

 It may have looked by the books but there was one stand out deck I want to highlight.

 
Hunter Wilson had decided to bring this Mono White Vampires deck along and it looks like a lot of fun. The aim is to flood the board with low curve creatures and tokens while hopefully having landed a Metallic Mimic naming vampire most probably. It seems like a good strategy in the current meta as sweeper effects like Sweltering Sun’s being benched in favour of more proactive cards. The deck also has longevity from any sweeper or Wrath effects still being played though with cards such as Adanto Vanguard and Adanto, The First Fort, a flipped Legion’s Landing. This innocuous two drop vampire would make combat difficult and hit for a fair amount each turn putting a decent clock on while the land, being flipped from your ideal turn one play with ease in a deck like this that loves attacking, could enable to rebuild efficiently. Another angle this deck can go is more card advantageous with Legion Conquistador, able to to find its three friends very easily, and of course it plays well with the decks primary line of play, Tokens. Couple something like Legion Conquistador or Aviary Mechanic with Oketra’s Monument can get out of hand super quickly. Hunter went 5-1 in the standard portion saying that Dusk//Dawn from the sideboard was a game changer being very effective against decks like Temur.

Unfortunately only two players would come out the other side of standard with there perfect record intact; Piotr Glogowski, playing Four Colour Energy, and Wing Chun Yam, on Ramunap Red, both making it safely into day two on 24 points.

As players got ready for the second day of the Pro Tour they prepared for the second draft of the weekend. With Glogowski and Yam ahead of the pack both them and players gunning for the top spot would be looking at a 3-0 record giving them the best chances going into the second chunk of standard play. Draft would be much the same as day one with players looking for signals telling them what deck options are open.

Again in this draft portion Black/White, Green/Blue and Blue/Black seemed to be the go to colour pairs preferred by players. This is because of the synergies that the first two can give you with Vampires and Merfolk, the former being very good at flooding the board with smaller creatures and tokens to overwhelm the opponent or just to get to the late game to produce a hay-maker. The latter was much better at forming a game plan around fewer or sometimes even one Merfolk and being able to give it evasion to bypass any blockers or removal opportunities, along with utilising powerful spells for their bone Merfolk creatures. Blue/Black would more revolve around pirates as a tribe but like with Merfolk didn’t need to rely on synergies and could get by with well times removal and permission spells coupled with a few value creatures getting damage through.

There has been a lot said about Ixalan’s limited environment with people opting for different tribes and combinations for different reasons. I think it’s safe to say that it’s one of the more diverse limited formats we’ve had in a while, where else could you draft Burning Sun’s Avatar and play it in an off colour deck consistently.


After the draft dust had settled, Wing Chun Yam was sitting pretty atop the standings on 8-1 in the company of Guillaume Matignon and Mike Sigrist. It was still all to play for though with 5 rounds of standard left to play before the top 8 cut.

Yam had a terrible last half of the weekend only able to produce one win from five matches, taking him out of contention and landing in 21st place. It was over these last five rounds that we started to see the top 8 taking shape and although Yam had unfortunately slipped out of the cut, Matignon, Sigrist and Glogowski had made it with Sigrist taking the top spot.

So here we are. Eight players left to fight it out for $50k:

Mike Sigrist on Temur Energy

Christian Hauck also on Temur Energy

Pascal Maynard with Blue/White God Pharaoh’s Gift

Seth Manfield playing Sultai Energy

Guillaume Matignon on Jeskai Approach

Piotr Glogowski as the third Temur Energy player in the top 8

John Rolf with a solo Ramunap Red effort

And finally, Samuel Ihlenfeldt with a resurgence of Mardu Vehicles

With the brackets shaping up, first on was Sigrist and Ihlenfeldt. Temur Energy vs Mardu Vehicles, a match that would favour Ihlenfeldt due to his creatures not actually being creature until he needed them to be which would make Sigrist’s removal much less effective. This would be Ihlenfeldt’s first even top 8 and first ever cash prize making his conversion rate 100%, which I’m sure he would love to keep hold of. With this rookie having a fantastic Pro Tour it would have been unlucky for him to have gotten this far to lose, though I’m sure he wouldn’t have minded really, but against a player like Sigrist who has been banded around as one of the best players around from time to time a loss would be almost inevitable right? I mean I’m not trying to be mean just realistic.
So imagine how good Sam Ihlenfeldt must have felt when he managed to pull out a 3-2 win to progress to the semi finals. Vehicles had triumphed over Energy and suddenly Ihlenfeldt’s prize money seemed to keep growing. Both players played brilliant games with obvious lines of play being thought hard about as to not make any silly mistakes, in the end though it came down to a missed attack by Sigrist with a Longtusk Cub that gave Ihlenfeldt an opening to crack back for lethal.

Ihlenfeldt 3 - 2 Sigrist

The second quarterfinal saw Seth Manfield playing Sultai Energy square off against Guillaume Matignon playing Jeskai Approach. This is a more unknown match of the top 8 as Sultai Energy is a more recent deck to emerge from the Energy brand of decks and Jeskai Approach has more commonly been seen as straight up White/Blue Approach being a much more controlling deck. The added red in Matignon’s list gave him access to direct damage and more on board removal which could prove effect against the creature heavy Sultai Energy. That removal may have been lacking for the Frenchman as Manfield was able to overrun his opponent with a barrage of creatures very effectively before Matignon could produce the decks signature card Approach Of The Second Sun to stem the beating and possibly pull out a win over the next seven draws. Manfield took this quarterfinal 3-1 fairly comfortably with Sultai Energy over Jeskai Approach and was ready to move on to his semi final.

Manfield 3 - 1 Matignon

Pascal Maynard has triumphed in style through out Pro Tour Ixalan. His deck choice of White/Blue God Pharaoh’s Gift has proved very effective and tweaking it to use the much faster Refurbish version rather than relying on Gate To The Afterlife meant he had potential for an explosive start. Piotr Glogowski on the other hand had opted for the agreed upon “best deck” Temur Energy. A deck that can just run its opponents over with value creatures and utilise energy well with cards like Whirler Virtuoso and Bristling Hydra.

In the main deck of Glogowski’s Temur Energy deck he only had a handful of ways to interact with God Pharaoh’s Gift; 3 Abrade and 2 Vraska, Relic Seeker. This wouldn’t bode well as Maynard would be able to discard a Gift by turn two at the earliest and then Refurbish it back on turn four with very little to stop him. 
That’s exactly what he did, most of the time being able to reanimate an Angel Of Invention or Champion Of Wits to gain either a wavy board advantage or card advantage. Glogowski could only try and stem the beating by churning out, in comparison, under powered value creatures in an attempt to get to the late game, though the late game did favour Maynard’s Gift deck more. Despite dropping a game, coincidentally one where he couldn’t find a God-Pharaoh’s Gift, Maynard managed to pull off two games which would give him a 2-1 lead into the first sideboarded game. With a sideboard full of creature permission and removal, Maynard seemed pretty well placed to take down the forth game and even with Glogowski bringing in more graveyard hate and ways of removing or countering God-Pharaoh’s Gift, it would all be too much for the Temur Energy player and Glogowski wasn’t able to find what he needed.

Maynard 3 - 1 Glogowski

Lastly in the quarter final bracket was Christian Hauck with Temur Energy against John Rolf with the only copy of Ramunap Red in the top 8. Ramunap Red was the second most played deck of the weekend and widely regarded as the next best deck after Temur Energy so this match up would be a battle of the top tier. Traditionally Ramunap Red is a faster deck but if it stumbles, especially against the likes of Temur Energy, then all of a sudden Temur can find a road block In the form of a Bristling Hydra.

It turns out that in the hand of two very skilled pilots, the top two decks of the current meta can be very evenly matched, shown in this five game stretch. Hauck was on a fairly standard version of Temur: Attune With Aether, Servant Of The Conduit, Longtusk Cub, Rogue Refiner, Bristling Hydra. This deck hits its curve often and effectively and that’s exactly the game plan that Christian Hauck employed and, despite fighting off multiple Hastey attacks that would make combat annoying, was successful. There would be 3 cards in John Rolf’s deck that would be particularly hindering; Soul-Scar Mage, interacting well with the +1/+1 produces by Longtusk Cub and Bristling Hydra. Rampaging Ferocidon, as Temur is a creature based deck the three mana dinosaur would make Hauck think twice before just dumping his hand of critters. Finally, and maybe most importantly, Harsh Mentor. This Bear almost stops Temur in it’s tracks, there are so many activated abilities from the previously mention Cub and Hydra to Whirler Virtuoso and Aethersphere Harvester meaning Hauck would have to use his energy wisely.

 With 2 more Ferocidons coming in from the sideboard, coupled with a fast start and consistent removal, Rolf was able to take the match in a close 3-2

Rolf 3 - 2 Hauck

So we move onto the semi finals with the first of the pairs battling it out; Ihlenfeldt and Manfield.

Ihlenfeldt was already on a high with his first Pro Tour top 8 and first Pro Tour semi final. This match on paper may have looked more in the Mardu players favour with the longevity in Vehicles becoming very effective as the game progressed along with its powerful removal spells. Unfortunately it just wouldn’t come together for Ihlenfeldt and despite landing Vehicles with no regard for cards like Abrade in the main deck for Sultai, couldn’t produce an answer to powerful, on curve creatures fired off at him from Manfield. Three games were all he needed and Sultai Energy proceeded to the final.

Manfield 3 - 0 Ihlenfeldt

The second semi final saw White/Blue God-Pharaoh’s Gift go head to head with Ramunap Red. This would be a non-interactive game in a sense; Rolf’s creatures, though fast, wouldn’t really play any utility role like messing with combat and the burn spells would primarily go to the dome. On the other side, Maynard would be looking to fill his graveyard and bring a Gift into play like every game, a fast start and turn four Gift would be the ideal. With cards like Rampaging Ferocidon, Glorybringer, Chandra, Torch Of Defiance and extra Abrades, the side boarded games could maybe run in reds favour, improving the long game and resilience to God- Pharaoh’s Gift. Maynard had one-ofs Authority Of The Consuls and Fumigate to hopefully slow Rolf’s clock down and even pull back a few points of life so he can land a Gift or maybe hard cast and Angel Of Invention. Even with the quick, efficient spells from the red deck and doing well to pick up a game, God-Pharaoh’s gift proved more than enough over 4 games finding fortune in turn four Refurbish for Gift straight into Mass card advantage along with board and life advantage thanks to Champion Of Wits and Angel Of Invention.

Maynard 3 - 1 Rolf

This was it. We’d made it. The final of Pro Tour Ixalan. It had been quite a ride with a lot of interesting matches and some new brew ideas. 8 had made it through the masses and performed to the best of their ability to make the cut and now two had shown their metal to go beyond.
Maynard, playing God-Pharaoh’s Gift, had taken a deck both incredibly powerful and very hard to master and had really shown its potential. Manfield’s Sultai Energy list was very impressive and had been rolling over its competition all weekend, with a combination of powerful creatures with utility abilities like Hostage Taker and Scarab God, and effective spells like Blossoming Defense and Fatal Push.

We were in this one for the long haul as five games were needed to decide the final match of the weekend. This match was close, Maynard staying true to his game plan of landing a Gift again without the worry of Abrade and only one Appetite For The Unnatural in the sideboard. 

Where as Manfield would have a little bit more interaction with removal spells that he would have to time well to get maximum impact. In the pre-sideboard games the power of God-Pharaoh’s Gift could very well prove to much for Manfield even with a plethora of card advantage and reanimating engines like Glint-Sleeve Siphoner and Scarab God. 

The decks went blow for blow, alternating winning games with each players decks showing off exactly what had put them through the weekend performing fantastically. It went down to the wire with both players reaching for their sideboards, Maynard looking to bring in removal in the shape of Angel Of Sanctions, Fairgrounds Warden and Fumigate while Manfield opted for a smattering of cards to combat both the graveyard and God-Pharaoh’s Gift related cards, Deathgorge Scavenger and Scarab God for the former and Negate and Appetite For The Unnatural for the latter.
 At 2-2, both players had to pull out something special to gain the edge in this clash and in the end Manfield was able to do just that, taking the last game with a masterful display of knowledge of his own deck and utilising every card he found.

Manfield 3 - 2 Maynard

That may have spelled the end of the weekend, a weekend that had seen among other things; Josh Utter-Leyton and Martin Jůza inducted into the hall of fame and despite him missing the Pro Tour, congratulations to Raphaël Lévy on his new baby. But the props definitely go to Seth Manfield, the world number 11, on his 6th Pro Tour win and hopefully he continues this form.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this look at Pro Tour Ixalan, be sure to watch out for future Pro Tours and GPs, also be sure to check out Arcane Cards for fantastic articles and maybe you can pick up some cards you need while you’re there.
Remember though, keep checking back to Game Changers for more gaming news and updates.

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