by Shyft- on 2009-10-20 18:57 EDT

Interesting lists here.

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by Djinn on 2009-10-20 19:05 EDT

2 Kokusho, the Evening Star

Welcome back to 2k4!

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by cmc on 2009-10-20 19:05 EDT

roflthopter!

also nice unsummons
also nice pestermites

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by RiQuSP on 2009-10-20 19:05 EDT

If by interesting you mean awful, I agree with you Shyft-

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by dwarfas on 2009-10-20 19:12 EDT

The list that won is an exact copy of the PT deck.

Vexing Shusher in the sb is super weird for me. Rather run +2 demonic dead -2 ardent plea. -2 land +2 counter protection. sb +2 counter protection land. run 3 cc sb cards.

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by dwarfas on 2009-10-20 19:13 EDT

plus the whole 61 card deck is weird. -1 hellkite

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by dwarfas on 2009-10-20 19:15 EDT

Might I also suggest Dramatic entrance vs counter decks?

if you can wait till turn 5. EOT dramatic entrance is sure to get countered. then you can cascade hypergenesis..

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by dwarfas on 2009-10-20 19:17 EDT

Also you need some kind of sb vs red deck wins etc etc

might i suggest an angel that prevents players from casting a certain color?

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by dwarfas on 2009-10-20 19:25 EDT

the lack of artifact removal is just upsetting.

next level trinket will chalice of the void and gg you. nothin you can do. at least have some arti removal in the sb.


ingot chewer

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by Trotsky1 on 2009-10-20 19:28 EDT

what was wrong with one post?

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by Eldariel on 2009-10-20 19:56 EDT

So, I suppose people don't know how to play Zoo vs. combo. Not unexpected. Kinda surprised the clear best deck didn't make any Top 4s though.

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by Shagrath on 2009-10-20 20:02 EDT

if its because of dark depths, why not repeal instead of unsummons? At least it has cantrip.

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by Markwerf on 2009-10-20 20:03 EDT

Why the greek guy used vexing shusher in his PT list I dont get either, not sure exactly what his plan against control lists was.
For me o-ring did really well, the ability to put it into play free from hyper is very relevant when you race, for example when comboing turn 2 with only 1 fattie in hand. Vendilion clique also did ok as combo protector while being a free drop from hyper, venser might be be better though.
The creature base is always a toss up with hypergenesis, still not sure what the best are. The whole thing of trying to kill directly is not the best way to go i think as it relies on bad cards like wound reflection, therefore taking creatures that are resilient to path or have a CITP trigger seem best. Having at least a few cheap guys (CMC < 8) when you need to hardcast is also useful.
Why is zoo the clear best deck by the way? It has a bad matchup game 1 against all the combo decks (dredge, hyper, dark depths, thopterfoundry) and in best of 3 its likely you lose one of g2 and g3 as well

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by Eldariel on 2009-10-20 20:18 EDT

Mark: G1 vs. Dark Depths is good (PtE, Ghost Quarter & co. mean that Lage is hard to get out and Qasali Pride-Mage means Chalices are far from GG). G1 vs. Hypergenesis is poor, but hardly unwinnable and G2 and 3 (particularly with Rubin's list) are quite good with 4 Wastelands and Blood Moons + Meddling Magi and decent chance of winning even after resolved Genesis (which is true even G1 thanks to Baneslayer).

G1 vs. Thopter Foundry is quite decent, even. G1 vs. Dredge is better than with practically any other deck in the format (save for actual MD Crypts or something of the sort).

Why do you think not only half the Top 8, but also all 4 decks at 25+ points from the Extended portion were Zoo? It was the most played deck and it was the best performer in a field of combo and mirror; isn't that saying enough?

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by Markwerf on 2009-10-20 20:29 EDT

it was the most played deck but im not sure it also performed the best. I agree its solid it's just hard to say its best. I dislike the choice for it having such a hard game 1 against a large part of the field and there are so many different combo's.
The extended metagame is just way more tricky to predict well that I find it easier to play a fast deck myself then having a defense against all the fast decks..

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by Eldariel on 2009-10-20 20:49 EDT

Considering both Rubin and Kibler went 9-1 (with Kibler losing that Hypergenesis match to his own mistakes in two games in a row) and Hunter went 9-0-1 in Extended, while all others were 8-2 or worse (except Ikeda who was 8-1-1, with Zoo as well)...

I mean, yeah, you can claim that they all got lucky with the same archetype and 'cause there was so much of it it performed the best, but come on. Even in Top 8, Zoo only lost one match to a non-Zoo deck and that was to Dredge.

Though again, you could bring up the Kibler incident, but given what happened in the Swiss (given that without that occurrence, there would've been no Hypergenesis in Top 8; Papatsarouchas was forced to win out at that point), I wouldn't find that too remarkable.


For the record, getting the numbers here:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/ptaus09/formatstandings&tablesort=2b

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by Markwerf on 2009-10-20 20:59 EDT

ye zoo was 25% of the field though, by numbers dredge did better I think. In top 8 all zoo wins were also near wins or 'should have been losses'.
There are a couple (3 to 4) decktypes who can compete for best and interestingly enough the most gain can be gotten by playing the best variation.
For magic-league zoo doesn't seem to be a good choice as all the decks i saw in my last games seemed to be gunning for it.

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by HBB_Maligno on 2009-10-20 21:15 EDT

Well the susher won the match+ the venser.
You try to either cast susher or cascade it EOT.

I'm glad my list made top 4. I mean It lacks of some cards and changes I did made it yesterday.

Changes will be with the snow CIPT lands, which made me lose a game, and add urborg obviously.

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by Eldariel on 2009-10-20 21:16 EDT

Whuh? Shimizu and Yuuya were both under 8-2; 7-2-1 and 7-1-2 respectively.

Also, what do you mean "by numbers it did better"? Archetype breakdown has:
Naya Zoo 53 - even including ALL the variants, it's 94
Dredge 51

And Dredge only had 2 in Top 8, Zoo had 4. 4/94 > 2/51, 62 >> 51 (only counting the Zoo variants that appeared in Top 8). It seems clear Zoo outperformed Dredge in that respect, especially since the Zoo-players that Top 8d did so mostly on the back of their Extended-record (save for Juza), as opposed to Dredge-players who both 15-pointed the Drafts and went under 24 in Extended. On what scale did Dredge, or any other deck, outperform Zoo?

And all the wins by Zoo were near wins, but even had Zoo lost all the games, all the losses would've been near losses. It's clear by the PT data that the matches are close, but it's also clear that Zoo performs the best overall in the largest number of matches.


Zoo was under quarter of the field (counting all the variants) and took half the Top 8. So meh.

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by coolcreep on 2009-10-20 21:31 EDT

Guys , i havent read the comments yet, but I in no way deserved to win. A) UNSUMMON IS TERRIBLE! I put it in at the last minute cuz i was like OH SHIT OH SHIT DARK DEPTHS but i forgot that it triggers off of cascade. Stupid me. I got really lucky a bunch of times throughout the trial, and its an embarrassment that I won it. that said, I'll gladly take the invite :)

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by HBB_Maligno on 2009-10-20 21:34 EDT

gay ¬¬



:D

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by Spyx on 2009-10-20 22:01 EDT

try wipe away if you're that scared off dark depths. I hear it gets rid of meddling mage and canonist too.

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by coolcreep on 2009-10-21 00:34 EDT

i wuv you spyx.

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by dwarfas on 2009-10-21 01:25 EDT

I believe hypergenesis is great if was in the right hands with a proper build would have won that pro tour.

the guy didn't angel kill anything. moo moo roar roar. :(

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by dwarfas on 2009-10-21 01:25 EDT

Which lead me to believe the player who played hypergenesis at pro tour was a retard.

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by Duodax on 2009-10-21 01:33 EDT

You are of course right, but tell that not me, but the dumb Greece instead... in his disgraced face.

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by Spyx on 2009-10-21 02:02 EDT

oh yeah btw spellstutter sprite > hypergenesis

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by Bereft on 2009-10-21 05:21 EDT

Yeah, such a bad player he ONLY top 8ed a Pro Tour. I'm sure most people here have done that numerous times.

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by IvanDano on 2009-10-21 08:24 EDT

Well the reason Zoo got played so much was due to it's success last year and because no one knew really what to go into coming this format. The other important factor is that Zoo continues to beat and hopes to get you down before you end up having answers.

Just like with everyone above, I think Hypergenesis should have won this Extended tournament considering the Angel is not a 'may' ability but hats off to him for winning.

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by dv8r on 2009-10-21 09:50 EDT

just felt that I needed to point out that calling Kibler's deck "zoo" is like calling any deck in t2 that plays bloodbraid elf (including grw decks) aggro jund, or calling any bg deck (including death cloud) rock. it's clearly a midrange deck and should be treated as such, zoo isn't a deck that plays baneslayer angel...

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by Deuce on 2009-10-21 10:02 EDT

But they both missed the trigger so it couldnt be erased anymore (doh). Though Kibler may have pretended that he didnt notice. :)

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by _S3BaS_ on 2009-10-21 10:10 EDT

2 Kokusho old tech is still viable? Did it work good?

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by C-Board on 2009-11-03 18:06 EDT

by Bereft on 2009-10-21 02:21 PST

Yeah, such a bad player he ONLY top 8ed a Pro Tour. I'm sure most people here have done that numerous times.



Clearly you dont remember Ryan Cimera or Billy Moreno

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