| He's not the reigning Players' Champion on accident. The release of a new set is always an exciting time for Magic. And with the awesome cards and flavor of Shadows over Innistrad, I couldn't wait for #SCGBALT to finally get here. Apparently I wasn't the only one, as Jim Davis was pretty excited as well. The 2015 SCG Tour Players' Champion felt he had a great deck for #SCGBALT and the trophy he left with proved he was right. Bant Company may have lost quite a bit with the departure of Khans of Tarkir—Windswept Heath, Flooded Strand, and Warden of the First Tree—but Shadows over Innistrad brought some new tools that it didn't have access to before, namely Archangel Avacyn and Duskwatch Recruiter. The ability for Davis to play the game on his opponent's turn with those new cards as well as some old ones—Collected Company and Ojutai's Command—made life tough on his opponents all weekend long. So will Davis be able to make life difficult for his opponent at the #SCGINVI? That's what we're going to find out in just a few short days, as the SCG Tour heads to Columbus for the conclusion of Season One. Jeff Hoogland has all but punched his ticket to the #SCGPC, but who else will lock up their spots? I'll be joined by Patrick Sullivan, Matthias Hunt, Ryan Overturf, Nick Miller, and the rest of the @SCGLive crew to find out who will be heading to Roanoke at the end of the year for the #SCGPC. If you can't make it out to the #SCGINVI, be sure to watch all three days of action at twitch.tv/scglive! — Cedric Phillips, Media Manager @CedricAPhillips |  |  | A New Standard, A New Modern With Bant Company winning the Standard Open and Scapeshift winning the Modern Classic, formats are changing. That means prices of cards are fluctuating as well. Thankfully, Chas Andres is here to give his insight about where he thinks things are headed for your Standard and Modern staples. |  | Everything You Need To Know About G/W Tokens After a great 2015, Chris Andersen has had a slow start to 2016. All that changed at #SCGBALT, where he finished in 18th place with his innovative G/W Tokens deck. So should you be sleeving up the deck at the #SCGINVI? Read along and find out from one of the SCG Tour's best! |  | White Standard Declaration in Stone. Archangel Avacyn. Archangel of Tithes. Notice something in common with all three? They're all incredibly powerful, they all performed very well at #SCGBALT, and they all take white mana to cast! But Sam Black wasn't surprised and thinks we should all prepare for a very white Standard. | | | The #SCGBALT Open showcased many great matches of new Standard, but Round 13 paired the two finalists of the 2015 Players' Championship. Both Todd Anderson and Jim Davis eventually made Top 8, but would U/R Control or Bant Company take this match? |  | | The Season One #SCGINVI is this weekend, which means we'll get our first look at Modern under the lights since the banlist changes and Shadows over Innistrad. The changes to the format should be significant. Eye of Ugin was banned, which means the Eldrazi should no longer have a stranglehold on the format—though I do expect the deck to still be a contender. But the Eye of Ugin banning had unintended victims, and those were the Tron decks. Last weekend, I played a local 80-man Modern event that featured four Jund/Abzan decks in the Top 8 and the players had beaten multiple Tron players during the Swiss. Big mana strategies are still a weak spot for the Jund decks but it might be that we have to look outside of the colorless strategies. If I were playing in the Invitational or Modern Classic this weekend I would do just that. | | This is a decklist that I had long ago filed away in the "Things I want to play if they ever ban Splinter Twin" folder. It's powerful, absurdly consistent, and—above all else—gets to cast Primeval Titan. It's a modern interpretation of the old Standard Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle deck that gets straight to the point of putting Mountains into play alongside the namesake land. Before the Eldrazi completely took over Modern, this deck had already been making some waves at the Pro Tour in an Emrakul, the Aeons Torn/Summoning Trap shell. This build eliminated all those bells and whistles for a much cleaner approach. 
This card is the entire deck. Much like the Primeval Titans in Amulet Bloom, all other creatures really don't compare. This is why I've added two copies of Summoner's Pact to the deck instead of playing a card like Emrakul or Inferno Titan. The plan is to cast a Titan or put a Titan into play using Through the Breach, go get two Valakut, the Molten Pinnacles, and then kill your opponent with land drops. It's simple, consistent, and powerful. There is some set-up required in that you have to avoid playing non-mountain lands in the matchups where you need to be fast. If you are going to put a Primeval Titan into play using Through the Breach, then you need 4 of your five lands to be Mountains or it will cost you on the damage-side of things. That said, there is very little benefit to having all five be Mountains so there are situations where playing a Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle or fetching up a basic Forest is free. The added benefit of Primeval Titan in this deck is that you don't need to spend time protecting the 6/6 because once it hits the battlefield, the damage is already done. With the two Valakut, the Molten Pinnacles in play from the first trigger of Primeval Titan, any card that lets you find one of the deck's 12 Mountains deals six damage to your opponent for a quick kill. Of course, there's always the chance you get to attack with the Titan… 
The plan is simple. There are only three cards that you need to win the game: Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, Mountain, and Primeval Titan. Fortunately the green Ponder from Oath of the Gatewatch finds all three and it's one of the reasons that we can build a deck around one spell. Oath lets us find it every game. As an added benefit, Oath of Nissa gives us flexibility in finding the occasional Sakura‑Tribe Elder as well as some of our important sideboard cards. 
Speaking of ramp spells that you can tutor for with Oath of Nissa, Oracle of Mul Daya is the queen of ramp spells. Yet another reason you can afford be so threat-light is that you can use this card's ability to both control the top of your deck and ramp additional Mountains and Valakut, the Molten Pinnacles into play. An unanswered Oracle will win the game in a way not unlike Primeval Titan because you can pair Oracle of Mul Daya with your fetch lands and shuffle effects to see three to five cards every turn. Either you find all the lands you need to win or you eventually find a Primeval Titan. 
G/R Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle takes a similar position to Tron before the Eye of Ugin banning. Much like Tron, we to have to include some cards in the deck to give ourselves a fighting chance against degenerate decks and Pia and Kiran Nalaar is a great start. The card is pretty good against both Infect and Affinity, found by Oath of Nissa, and can be ramped out on Turn 3. When you pair this with the fact that Pia and Kiran Nalaar are good against a control deck, it becomes a solid inclusion in the deck. I wouldn't ever want to draw more than one of them but they are welcome in a lot of games. 
The sideboard to the deck is fairly straightforward. Against control decks we are boarding out our sweepers for additional threats. Against decks trying to go under us, we board out some of our four-drops for whatever hate card is appropriate for the matchup. Chalice of the Void works against decks like Zoo and Infect, Damping Matrix is for Company decks and can stop Thopter/Sword, Obstinate Baloth is for Burn, and—my favorite—Gaea's Revenge is great against Blue Moon and Jeskai/Grixis Control decks. Just be sure to fetch out your basic Forests before Blood Moon hits the table. I think this weekend is a great time to play big mana strategies. Players are excited that cards like Sword of the Meek and Ancestral Vision are returning to Modern. What better way to crush that excitement than by ignoring those cards and casting six-drops? Also, Primeval Titan <3 — Matthias Hunt, @MtGMatthias | | Season One of the SCG Tour has one event remaining, the Invitational in Columbus! For Jeff Hoogland, Joe Lossett, and Andrew Tenjum, a Players' Championship invite is on the line and in their hands this weekend. The top three players on the POY Leaderboard had lackluster showings at #SCGBALT, but control their own destiny this weekend in Columbus thanks to their strong performance in Season One. Movement in the Top 16 of the POY Leaderboard was limited, but Todd Anderson and Chris Juliano moved up higher after their Top 8s in the Standard Open in Baltimore. Anderson's fourth-place finish shot him into eighth overall, and now has a chance to jump into the top three with a strong finish at the Invitational. Juliano climbed into 12th place and can look forward to two byes going forward on the SCG Tour. The Players' Champion, Jim Davis, won the Open in Baltimore and jumped into the Top 32. |  | | Though Jim is in the Top 32 now, he will still have two byes on the SCG Tour this year as part of winning the 2015 Players' Championship. Kevin Jones and Emma Handy are fresh faces in the Top 32, using Top-16 finishes at #SCGBALT to break into one-bye territory. All eyes now shift to the Season One Invitational as four slots to the 2016 Players' Championship will be filled. Hoogland, Lossett, and Tenjum are in good shape, but are not safe as many capable players are chasing them. With Gerry Thompson, Brad Carpenter and Harlan Firer on the outside looking in, the top three still need to put in work this weekend. The road is a bit tougher for players like Caleb Scherer, Todd Anderson, and Tom Ross, but all three of them have shown they aren't strangers to the Sunday stage on Invitational weekends. The drama doesn't stop at ninth place either. While not very likely, players all the way down to 16th place are mathematically alive for a #SCGPC slot. It'd take a lot of help from the players above, but a runner-up finish could add up to an invite if things break just right at the top. Catch all the action from Columbus this weekend at twitch.tv/scglive and see who takes home $20,000 and which four players qualify for the 2016 Players' Championship! |  |   If you would like to unsubscribe and stop receiving these emails please click here. |
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