For all you aggro lovers

[Nastaboi]

Highlander Sunday 5th of August at Poromagia, results:

Andrei UBr Control 3-1
Mikko UB Control 3-1
Miikka 4c Aggro 3-1
Myself High Tide 3-1
Joni Dredge 3-1
Jori UBRg Control 2-2
Tomi UWB Control 2-2
Tomi UWB Artifact Ramp 1-3
Sami UWB Control 1-3
Kari UW Skies 1-3
Arttu UWB Control 0-2

Look at these decks. Two combo decks, one aggro-control, one ramp, six UBx control decks and only one pure aggro deck. You don't really have to be playing creatures in this format. My list (new cards):

Artifact: 5

Candelabra of Tawnos
Memory Jar
Sapphire Medallion
Sensei's Divining Top
Wayfarer's Bauble

Creature: 10 (with total power of 20)

Augur of Bolas
Cloud of Faeries
Palinchron
Peregrine Drake
Sea Gate Oracle
Snapcaster Mage
Solemn Simulacrum
Trinket Mage
Vendilion Clique
Venser, Shaper Savant

Enchantment: 4

Back to Basics
Propaganda
Spellweaver Volute
Treachery

Instant: 32

Arcane Denial
Blue Sun's Zenith
Brainstorm
Careful Consideration
Condescend
Counterspell
Cryptic Command
Dizzy Spell
Fact or Fiction
Flash of Insight
Forbidden Alchemy
Force Spike
Force of Will
Frantic Search
Gigadrowse
High Tide
Impulse
Intuition
Mana Drain
Mana Leak
Meditate
Memory Lapse
Mystical Teachings
Noxious Revival
Remand
Repulse
Rewind
Snap
Spell Snare
Telling Time
Thirst for Knowledge
Turnabout

Land: 30

Flooded Strand
23 Island
Misty Rainforest
Polluted Delta
Scalding Tarn
Underground Sea
Verdant Catacombs
Watery Grave

Sorcery: 19

Braingeyser
Call to Mind
Compulsive Research
Deep Analysis
Demonic Tutor
Foresee
Gitaxian Probe
Ideas Unbound
Merchant Scroll
Mind's Desire
Personal Tutor
Ponder
Preordain
Retraced Image
Serum Visions
Sleight of Hand
Time Spiral
Timetwister
Yawgmoth's Will

Won against UW Skies, Esper Ramp and Esper Control and lost against UBr Control. The changes were good and the deck is really straightforward now. The only debatable slot is Gigadrowse, but I'll stick to it until they print something better.

[Doks]

I agree that you can win a tournament with a control deck in the highlander format. If there wasn't even the slightest chance to do so, why would anyone keep playing control at all?

However, I think that it has something to do with your local metagame. I always had the impression that control oriented decks are the prefered ones to be played in the northern parts of europe whereas here in middle europe Goodstuff & friends still run wild.

Don't get me wrong, I like input from everywhere (and I will have to check if I can add something from your list to mine ), but I don't think that a single 11 man tournament where only 1 aggro deck was played is representative.


The problem of "spells on legs" and powercreep in general still exists.

[MMD]

Aggro is dead! Mana Drain and Demonic tutor need to be banned! 

Unfortunately the tournament is no real argument against the aggro complaint as I expect that a good aggro deck/pilot would have 4-0 or 3-1'd here. But at least we have a proof that the control decks can win in time (I hope you played with time limit...)

So your deck seems to be a good metagame call in a sea of control decks. I personally prefer an Ugb list but this is another topic. Nice to see a competitive decklist with cards I had to google for (Retraced Image).

Any chance to put up the T8 list on mtgpulse? I would appreciate if we could collect more tournament and deck data and mtgpulse dot com is the most relevant IMO.

I decided to do this (or at least take care that) for the monthly Dortmund (formerly Iserlohn) tournament which is the biggest monthly tournament in Germany as far as I now. I will also ask the local players there if we can revive the old "rule" that every tournament winner writes a report on magicplayer.org.

[Nastaboi]

These results just show that people like to play with Islands and nothing more. I was just amused by that and liked to share it, not making any silly arguments based on these results.

[W0lf]

Islands Rule!

[pyyhttu]

Cool decks, I need that dredge list from Joni.

Nice to see a competitive decklist with cards I had to google for (Retraced Image).

Nastaboi: How did this card fare in your High Tide? It was sick, right, right!?

[Dreamer]

IslandsForests Rule!

Fixed

[Nastaboi]

Nice to see a competitive decklist with cards I had to google for (Retraced Image).

Nastaboi: How did this card fare in your High Tide? It was sick, right, right!?

I had one combo puzzle where I had to tutor for it to barely win from a tight spot.