| Liam Lonergan is the New Jersey Invitational champion! Given who made the Top 8 at the New Jersey Invitational this past weekend, I don't think many people expected me to say those words at the conclusion of the tournament. With Brad Nelson, Tom Ross, Michael Majors, Eric Hawkins, and Jadine Klomparens in the elimination rounds, it would have been easy to pick one of them to hoist the trophy and punch their ticket to the #SCGPC. But it was an unknown in Liam Lonergan who is headed to the Star City Game Center at the end of the year. And what deck does he have to thank? Elves…?! It was a bold choice for Modern from Lonergan, but the more and more I think about it, the more and more it makes sense. Elves is a deck that preys on generally fair decks, and with combo not being a major player in Modern right now, Elves was actually positioned quite nicely. Lonergan began his Sunday run by sweeping Tom Ross piloting Dredge, a matchup Elves is heavily favored in. After that, Liam dispatched Michael Majors piloting Abzan 3-1 due to Majors' lack of relevant interaction. And in the finals, Lonergan swept Jadine Klomparens piloting Jund with timely top-decks and a better overall game plan. Those three wins made Lonergan undefeated in Modern over three days. With Elves. Maybe the choice doesn't seem so strange after all! Congratulations are in order for Liam Lonergan on his victory at the New Jersey Invitational and I look forward to seeing him at the StarCityGames.com Players' Championship in December! — Cedric Phillips, Media Manager @CedricAPhillips |  |  | Updates To Invitational Decks It's been a while since Mike Sigrist played in an Invitational, but with the #SCGINVI being close to home, we got to see the 2015 Professional Player of the Year in action. Things didn't go great, but as he prepares for #GPINDY and Worlds, Mike explains the lessons he learned during his time in Jersey. |  | Video: Temur Emerge In Standard! With many great players having success with Temur Emerge recently, Gerry Thompson decided to take the deck through a league on Magic Online. Watch as GerryT tries to harness the power of Elder Deep-Field, Wretched Gryff, and Emrakul, the Promised End before he gives his verdict. |  | Conspiracy: Take The Crown Finance Review With Conspiracy: Take The Crown revealed, it's time for a financial set review! With reprints of Berserk, Inquisition of Kozilek, and Show and Tell along with cool newbies like Sanctum Prelate, Recruiter of the Guard, and Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast, Chas Andres has quite a bit to talk about! | | | Check out Brad Nelson and Miles Rodriguez battle it out in the quarterfinals of the New Jersey Invitational with Death's Shadow Aggro and Burn. Which deck can squeeze out the victory in a tight five-game set? |  | | People tend to put a lot of work into their deck choices for high-stakes events and last weekend was no different for me. After analyzing the decks I thought would make up the #SCGINVI metagame, I decided G/W Hexproof was the best deck for me due to the fact that most decks lacked the hate necessary to counter this seemingly-forgotten archetype. After doing a bit of research, I borrowed some theory from Ian Jasheway and Tuan Doan on the how the deck plays, how to build the deck, and how to navigate a good portion of matchups. I ultimately arrived at this list: | | The goal of the deck is to play either a creature with Hexproof or Kor Spiritdancer and suit it up with a plethora of auras to make racing impossible for the opponent. Despite being relatively linear, most of the play in the deck comes from understanding its role against each opponent in a Modern tournament and sequencing accordingly. Against a faster deck like Infect or Dredge, it is correct to try and just kill the opponent as quickly as possible without much regard for what they are doing. The opposite is true for opponents playing a longer fair game with Jund or Jeskai Nahiri. Against these slower decks, there tends to be a feeling of threading the needle to apply as much pressure as possible without opening oneself up to a blowout at the hands of Liliana of the Veil or Damnation. G/W Hexproof tends to be a synergy based deck in which the sum of its parts is more important than having a few individually powerful cards. This reinforces a 'less is more' mentality, where the sideboard is narrow yet impactful in order to reduce the number of cards brought in per match. G/R Tron, for example, is one of the deck's worst matchups by a large margin and still only requires a sideboard of six cards: In:
2 Gaddock Teeg
2 Suppression Field
2 Stony Silence Out:
1 Unflinching Courage
1 Spirit Link
1 Gryff's Boon
3 Path to Exile The deck has positive matchups against Death's Shadow Aggro, Merfolk, Dredge, Zoo, Burn, U/W/X Control decks, Grim Flayer Jund, and Bant Eldrazi. A majority of these decks flounder against a relatively large creature with a handful of keywords due to their inability to race. Any setup including a Daybreak Coronet and one of the auras that grants Totem Armor is nigh-unstoppable for decks that plan to win fairly in combat. It's against the unfair strategies that are either much faster or that can actually interact without targeting its creatures that G/W Hexproof tends to flounder. Infect, G/R Tron, Affinity, Traditional Jund, Melira Company, Lantern Control, and Ad Nauseam all fit into this mold and are near-impossible matchups for G/W Hexproof. Looking at the prevalence of the decks in the former paragraph compared to the lower numbers of decks in the latter section shows the justification in bringing such a linear deck to a tournament with stakes as high at the Invitational. Going forward I would happily play the deck again under the same circumstances, with a handful of changes: | | It's hard to over exaggerate how strong I think that G/W Hexproof is with a sea of Dredge, Burn, and fair creature decks dominating the top tables of Modern tournaments. — Emma Handy, @Em_TeeGee | | Season Two is in the books and four more slots for the Players' Championship have been booked! Liam Lonergan, Tom Ross, Andrew Jessup, and Kevin Jones will be heading to Roanoke at the end of the year along with Jim Davis, Jeff Hoogland, Gerry Thompson, and Andrew Tenjum. Now the attention turns to Season Three and the final stretch of the Player of the Year race. The Player of the Year race is becoming clearer with just seven Opens and the Atlanta Invitational remaining in the third season of the SCG Tour. Tom Ross made up significant ground on Jeff Hoogland, following his fourth Invitational Top 8, leaving The Boss just 15 SCG Points behind the current frontrunner. Michael Majors is now in contention in both the POY race and the Season Three race after his Top 4 finish in the Invitational. Majors is within striking distance of two byes, and the Platinum pro is a threat for spiking an event to put his name in the talks as one of the year-end points leaders to qualify for the #SCGPC. |  | | The three top yearly points leaders that are not already qualified for the Players' Championship are Joe Lossett, Todd Stevens, and Caleb Scherer. All three have had a great year so far and have the opportunity to close out strong and secure an invite to the Players' Championship. Ali Aintrazi and Harlan Firer are the closest threats to those three, while Bradley Carpenter, Dan Jessup, Todd Anderson, Jacob Baugh, and Ross Merriam all fill out the Top 12-16 with just four points separating the five players. Aintrazi and Merriam both made the semifinals of the Modern Open at the #SCGINVI, giving them both strong boosts to their yearly point totals, but also starting them off in great shape for the Season Three race. Carpenter was a win away from the Top 8 of the Invitational, but still climbed four spots on the weekend, making him the top #SCGPC contender from Team Next Ridge Nexus. With a bunch of points from the Invitational, will players like Jadine Klomparens, Brad Nelson, or Eric Hawkins make a push for a Season Three qualification? Can Hoogland hold on to the Player of the Year title like he has all year? Find out as the SCG Tour heads down the stretch of Season Three! |  |   If you would like to unsubscribe and stop receiving these emails please click here. |
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